Sleeping Arrangements
by sariahbradshaw
Summary: When Emma Swan was sixteen, she wanted nothing more than her own space. The night before her wedding, she'd give her own hand to have the pirate beside her.
1. Chapter 1

When Emma Swan was sixteen, she shared a bed with three other girls and wished for nothing more than a single amount of space that was her _own_. Staring up at the peeling, off-coloured wall of her the bedroom of her current home, kept away by the nudge against her knee by little Molly or the occasional grunting snore from the much larger Ann, she blinked in the darkness and prayed for nothing more.

Just a bit of space.

And when she celebrated her sixtienth birthday in that cramped, over-worked bed, a quiet acknowledgement in her own mind and nothing more, she made a promise to herself.

She was going to get out, get a job, and when she could finally afford a roof over her own head, she wasn't going to share her damn bed with anyone. Even if it was a fucking cot in the back of some rented office space.

It was going to be _hers._

* * *

She didn't sleep well, beside Neal. She cared about him, she really did. Might have even loved him. She liked how he moved closer to her in the back of the bug when the nights dipped and weather got chillier. Liked how they spent days together, separating and coming back together until the anxiety at every goodbye transformed into some small drop in her soul, blooming as bright as a flower in the winter. This could be it. This would be the person who wouldn't leave her. Her forever.

He was older and funny and taught her tricks to help them survive and she even liked that. The way their criminal partnership seemed to bind them closer because he was at fault too. She had evidence against him. Leverage.

After being alone for so long, Emma soaked in his presence like a lizard on a rock, basking in its warmth.

But she really, really hated sleeping with him.

Even on the nights when their forced proximity in the bug probably kept them from dying, she'd find herself huddling, awake and alone in the dark. His hot breath burning against her scalp. The hand against her hip like a weight. The touch of his knees on her shins intrusive and unwelcome. She'd squirm and wriggle, trying to find an ounce more room even as she pulled her jacket further up her shoulders or down her legs to keep warm. There was something about his presence that was so welcome during the day, that turned overwhelming and made her itchy at night. It made her want to dart out of the car and sleep under the vastness of the stars, damn the cold. It made her want to run and run and keep running until the blackness swallowed her whole and she ended up in the welcome embrace of the night.

It was better when they broke into a room, or rarely, used money to pay for one. At least on a crappy, queen-sized bed she had enough room to turn away so their bodies didn't touch. She would catch drifts of slumber then, her knees pulled up close and arms stiff as she kept every line of her body away, occupying her own tiny little space.

But inevitably, she'd wake to the stale smell of sex, cheap laundry detergent, and burnt coffee in her nose. Her fingers would catch the grit of filth on the sheets left behind by the room's former occupants.

She never brought it up because it wasn't his fault and it's not like they had a real choice. Most nights had to be spent in the back of the bug. Once, she'd caught a bad cold and he'd slept in the uncomfortable passenger seat to prevent from catching whatever she had. Stretched out on the faded interior, in spite of her clogged nose, Emma slept sounder than she had in years.

"Ems?" His gruff, sleepy voice woke her from her musing as Emma shifted again in the back of the car, arching her back a little to get more room.

Neal misinterpreted her action, his arm snaking around her and bringing her flush against his chest, placing a sloppy kiss on her neck. The sensation of him surrounding her made her stomach churn and breath catch, her pulse fluttering wildly.

"You alright?"

It wasn't his fault. She liked him. Loved him, even. It was just that last home with four to a bed and the one before that where she'd shared with a total psycho who'd tried to cut her hair off with cleavers when she slept. And the one before that where the boys liked to sneak in and light off firecrackers to scare them awake.

It was just herself, wishing for a little bit of space in the world that she could call her own as she turned sixteen.

Swallowing down the fear, Emma nodded, patting the arm around her center. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Neal gave her a little squeeze, shuffling them both back a little. "Go to sleep, Ems. We've got a big day tomorrow."

That made her smile. Tallahassee. Florida with its endless blue skies and clear seas. Plenty of open, waiting-to-be-filled room. Enough for one Emma Swan to carve out a life of her own.

With a person she loved.

Still smiling, Emma turned a little closer to Neal and forced herself to dream of it, forced her body to relax in his embrace.

Tomorrow.

* * *

There is no space in prison.

It's the first thing she notes, still oddly detached and emotionless about the whole thing. Still half expecting to wake up on a sandy beach to Neal asking if she'd slept well.

The cell itself is tiny and shared, but Emma Swan has been sharing small spaced her entire life and it doesn't truly face her. What gets her, its the bars.

She thinks they're meant to intimidate. To make the hairs on her neck stand up the way dogs at a kennel get. To make her feel weak and powerless. It's not the cage itself that sinks into her bones, though. It's the sight through them. The fact that they leave enough space for her to see out of into the sheer desperation that is Phoenix's Women's Correctional Facility. The only thing she sees beyond her cage is more cages. The dead-eyed clanking of the guards. The gray, questionable slop of food. The ridiculous, bright and crude colouring on the walls of the dayroom with its single TV, spouting messages of hope and healing that have been covered over with stains and carvings and names of people.

 _Catie was here,_ is below her bunk. She stared at those words the first few weeks. Thought about Catie, and how she attempted to carve her own presence in this desperate, cloying place because there was no where else. There is no where else. For the first time in her life, Emma Swan is staring at into the world and she sees nothing better than where she is. No more welcome blue seas or the endless, vastness of stars. No more endless city blocks or alleys to claim.

 _Catie was here._ That was it. This was all the space Catie could claim for her own. All that Emma could have.

Except even less, because even her body wasn't her own anymore. She looked back down at her protruding belly for a moment, wanting to scream and hit it, to lash out against the thing that had taken ever her away from herself. Her stomach cried out for food to feed another. Her bladder got pinched by someone else's tiny feet. Her breasts were sore and her skin felt pulled too tight, straining against adding another person into the limited, nothing space that Emma Swan existed within.

She breathed deeply, trying to remember the calming exercises the well-meaning nurse had taught her the other day. It wasn't the kid's fault. He hadn't asked for this. This was her fault, for being careless. Her fault for believing in a man and giving up her dreams of her own cot in a damn office space for soft sand and a man. Her fault, for thinking for one second, that he would be different than anyone else.

Taking a last steadying inhale, she leaned her head back against the concrete.

Today was her eighteenth birthday. She closed her eyes and made a wish, one hand resting on the belly that was no longer own.

 _I hope you get it_ , she thought. _I hope you have your own bed in a house as big as a fucking castle and that the world never, ever takes away your possession of yourself. I hope you live a life so fucking big it dwarfs the damn ocean beside Tallahassee and one day, I read about you in a newspaper._

"Oi, Emma, keep it down will you? Some of us are trying to sleep."

Hastily wiping away the tears that have fallen down her cheek, Emma mutters a quick apology and stuffs her harsh sobs against her hand until her cellmate rolls back over, continuing to snore.

 _I hope you're happy. I love you._

* * *

She's got her underwear back on before he's even rolled over.

Men are so fucking slow in the afterglow.

"Where 'you going?" He slurs, reaching one hand out to the still-warm side of the bed.

Randy? Robert? Whatever. Emma shuffles back, finding her jeans in the dim city light and pulling them up her legs, ignoring the slickness between her thighs.

She makes a mental note to take a shower before she crawls into bed. That'll be uncomfortable to wake up to in the morning. "Leaving. Thanks for that. I had a good time."

She actually means that too. R-something or other had been good for two solid orgasms. A rarity among one-night stands picked up at the dive bar down the street.

He leans back, his hair disheveled and one eye peeking open. "You don't have to, you know. You could stay. I make a mean Spanish omelette."

Her spine crawls at the implication of the morning, but she simply ignores him, gathering her bra off the lamp and snapping it closed. Now if she could just find her sweater…."Thanks, but I've got to get home."

Ah, on the ceiling fan. Jesus, how did he even-Nevermind. She stands on his nightstand to reach for it, noting with distaste that there's a small tear in the left shoulder.

Emma shrugs. It's her twenty-eighth birthday tomorrow. She can afford to splurge a little and buy herself a new one. Plus, she's feeling pretty forgiving after coming twice.

"Oh, got another man's bed to warm?" He's clearly teasing, watching her dress with slight interest and it makes her snort.

He's not bad, R-whoever. Decent dick. Decent sense of humour. If Emma were another woman, had another life, she might consider his offer.

But she's not, and she learned her lesson hard. So she snags her purse and keys, not even looking back as she calls over her shoulder, "Just mine."

She can hear his laughter as she closes the door but the moment she's tumbling back into her apartment, showering as quickly as humanly possible before sinking into her perfect, ridiculously large bed, she knows she's made the right choice.

Emma smiles as sleep begins to take her, sprawled out on her giant bed with the fifty-million blankets and twenty pillows and totally, absolutely hers.

And no one to share it with.

Just how she likes it.

* * *

He keeps trying to slow things down.

But she doesn't want slow. She's just returned his heart (his heart, Jesus it had been in her fucking hand) and she finally has him naked (like there's been heavy petting and orgasms. Definitely orgasms but it seemed like the damn town had an alarm whenever they tried to get their pants off, and for once maybe she can see him in all his glory) and she just wants to fuck, fast and furiously. She wants to forget that she almost lost him, that she was so wrapped up in her shitty childhood that she missed the fact that he was missing his goddamn heart.

"Swan," Killian's voice is hot over her, his breath against her neck as he pulls his hips away again, making her shudder.

She feels his nose against her cheek so Emma closes her eyes, gasping for air. Her nerves are on fire, her fingers shaking with need to take and feel and _why won't he hurry up already?_

His hand moves up from where it had been playing with her. (Playing the operative word. The asshole had been edging her for what felt like hours.) Fine: he wanted to tease. She could tease too.

She managed to wriggle a hand free from under their tangled forms, skimming past his hips and reaching for the silken shaft, giving it a sharp pump that earned her a whine from the man above her. Emma grinned, repeating the motion in hopes of drawing out another sound until she had a rhythm going, Killian cursing as he leaned into her neck, his body trembling over hers.

She grinned. Sweet, sweet control.

"Swan-buggering fuck. Love, you must stop that. You must _-Emma,_ "

Her name surprises her enough that she pauses, but he takes the opening, wrenching her hand away and then pushing her into the mattress with his weight. Finally, she thinks as his cock rubs against her wetness, making heat explode on her skin. Finally, he's going to-

Bring his hand up to cup her cheek, thumb stroking her cheek with such reverence she has to bite the inside of the soft flesh. "Emma, open your eyes love. Look at me."

 _No._ She wants to scream. _This isn't what she wants. She doesn't want to see him staring at her like she hung the moon or something. Not when she missed it. Not when he nearly died and-_

He ruts against her, grinding his hard length against where she is aching and it's such a dirty move, such a bastard of a thing to do. Such a-

Her eyes fall open as she glares at him and he seems to read her mind, smirking. "Pirate, love."

But then his whole face softens as he keeps her their, holding her in his gaze with affectionate and devotion and fuck-

"Swan," His hand at her jaw prevents her from turning away and she hates him a little bit for it. "Come on sweetheart, don't run away from this."

His lilt is so soft, he's so stupidly tender as his nose nudges her face, his hook running patterns up her side and goddammit she feels moisture at her eyes. She rakes in her inhale, blinking furiously because she will not cry. That would be the worst. _How fucking pathetic that she might-_

He manages to kind her lips, kissing her gently as his thumb wipes at the tears she feels burn down her cheek. She turns to him then, shame and fury warring through her blood. "I hate you."

Killian chuckles, his bright blue eyes twinkling and how did she not notice? "I don't think that's entirely true love."

He rubs the wetness into her hot cheeks and she bites her lip again because this is bullshit. "Yes I do. You-You _almost,_ "

She breaks in a gasp, the horror and fear crawling back up her spine because she can't even say the words. The fact that he almost died and left and he promised her. He promised.

"Sshh, Emma. Hush. I'm fine. I'm right here. See." He lifts one of her entrapped hands in his, placing it against his chest so she can feel the wild, blinding joy of his heart thudding against his ribs. His fingers intertwine with hers and she squeezes a little, taking a shuddering breath at the feeling.

"You promised," She glares at him despite her tears. "You _promised_ me."

He nods, kissing gently down the slope of her throat so she can feel his hair swipe against her collar. "I know love. I won't leave you. I won't."

In a sudden flex of his hips he's inside her and she gasps, clawing at his back in surprise and elation and feeling the way her body has to accommodate him. He's overwhelming her, forcing her to make room for him inside her and it's so much. _Too much. Not enough._ Her head is reeling.

Killian doesn't move, muttering in a strange language into her skin as he holds himself still, his chin dipping to her sternum. "Are you alright Swan?"

 _No,_ she wants to say. _This is too much_. She wanted to fuck hard and fast until she couldn't think. Not this tide of him invading her until she was sure her skin would carry the smell of sea forever. Until he licked against part of her soul, writing his name in indelible ink.

"Swan?" It's the note of worry in his voice, the way he rears to leave that causes her legs to rise and wrap around his hips, forcing him just an inch deeper as he curses against her.

"I'm fine. It's just-It's been awhile." It's the truth she can vocalize, the needing a minute to get used to the pressure of him inside her. She can't find words for the other thing, the way that even as it burns the idea of stopping is so, so much worse.

He frowns, brushing against her hair. "Do you need me to stop?"

There's too much sincerity in his look and she can feel him hard and balls drawn tight but she knows that if she told him yes, he'd withdraw without a moment's hesitation, his own discomfort be damned. And that, if anything, makes her shake her head. "No. No please don't."

He nods, that little frown still between his brows as he runs his hand in her scalp, raining kisses on her face as he waits, is always waiting, for her to adjust. For her to let him in.

Emma takes long, steady inhales until she shifts slightly, the movement making him hit that spot inside her and earning her a long, low moan that she wants again. And again. She nods her head furiously, knowing that he'll feel it despite the tortured closure of his eyes.

"Move. _Fuck_ , move Killian."

And he does. Long, smooth draws in-and-out of her that make her feel every inch he touches inside of her, withdrawing until she's clawing at his ass and pushing back in. Building a slow, deep pace that makes her feel him in her goddamn throat.

"Fuck. Swan, you're so perfect. So tight. So beautiful. Jus' made for me," He slurs against her, his voice fading to curses and sounds as he continues to pump in, a white haze taking over her thoughts.

It's lazy and gentle and perfect until she feels his hook, warmed by their flesh, reach down and rub at her clit. And suddenly she's desperate and there-

"That's a Swan. Let go, love. Let go." She hears his voice in her ear but she's frantic. She doesn't know whether to pull him closer by his delectable ass or cant her hips up to make the penetration that much stronger or release her legs from his hips to plant her legs on the bed and take him further. (Can he go further, Jesus?) Or bite his ear or kiss his chin. She can't think beyond the thrum of her pulse in her ears and the way her vision has dissolved to pinpricks of sensation, the slide of his cock and the circling of his hook and she just doesn't know but it's killing her. She won't survive this. It's too much. It's licking her insides and emptying her out and-

He gets his knees under him at the next withdrawal and pulls her up quickly, thrusting back in so her legs are spread open on either side of his hips and he's spearing her. His hook just a perfect pressure on her clit and she's done.

It's white and blinding and takes her for years, unrelenting as her bones liquefy and her thoughts turn to ash and there is nothing, nothing left of her. Distantly, she feels him shudder and pulse inside her and almost dream-like, she hears his voice.

"I love you."

When she comes down she's curled up in his chest, her cheek against the thrumming sound of his heart and his hand and hook braced against her back, supporting her even though she knows his knees must be killing him. She tries to pull back, to gesture to him that she can take her own weight again but the move reminds her that while softening he is still inside and she nearly doubles over at the sensation, crying out against his shoulder. He swears when she clenches reflexively and moves his hands until they're under her, lifting her off him with a hiss and then pulling her back against him, cradling her so she can stretch the worn muscles of his thighs across the bed.

Killian kisses her hair gently as quiet descends, his arms moving up and down her spine. "You alright Swan?"

She's drained and emptied and fucking fantastic and absolutely terrified so she just nods weakly against his collar. "Hmm."

His hand pauses mid-stroke and she know's he's caught her prevarication and she can't help but tense in his grasp because she's not ready to even think about everything she felt, much less explain it to another human being. But Killian is Killian, and after a moment his hand resumes she Emma realizes he's simply letting it go for her sake. She nudges closer to him in gratitude and feels the soft smile on the top of her head he gives her. "Are you staying love?"

Her eyes fly open and she looks at the bed around him. The floral sheets Granny favours. The scent of sex in the room. The low light coming from the curtains. The way he'd consumed her before, the way his heat clung to the sheets and she feels her lungs collapsing, panic making itself known again because she needs her bed in the loft-or maybe another room altogether but he's at Granny's so fuck, maybe the bug. She could sleep in the bug but that was where Neal-

"It's just a question love, calm down." He places a hand over her own racing heart and a sloppy kiss against her cheek, as if sensing that this was all too much for her. "I just needed to ascertain if I should dig out new sheets when I dispose of the sheath. You are always welcome in my bed, but I understand if you need to go. You are a woman of some demand, after all."

He gives her his shy, boyish smile and she feels her eyes water again because she's sure him say through words. Knows he wants her to stay. Knows that leaving him after having sex the first time is a shitty thing to do, but he doesn't press. Always thinking of her. Never demanding.

She presses her face into his chest, looping her hands around his neck to hide her tears as she nods slowly against him. His solidness. "It's not-I enjoyed that but uh...could I use your shower before I go?"

She can feel his tongue dart out and know he's going to invite himself into said shower before he leans her back, seeming to think better of it. With a warm smile he nods. "Of course love. I'll fetch you a towel."

He doesn't comment on the blotchiness of her cheeks and if she had anything left in her, she'd kiss him just for that. But instead she nods, grateful before detangling herself and walking on wobbly legs to the ensuite bathroom. She starts the water, hoping the heat of it will bring some relief to well-used muscles if not her whirling mind.

Emma has no idea how long has passed before she hears a respectful knock before the door opens and Killian shuffles inside. She can see his outline through the shower curtain, placing two ridiculously fluffy towels on the toilet seat cover (Christ, did he bribe Granny or something for those?) but pausing before he left. Softly, he called out above the din of the shower.

"Swan?"

She makes a noise in affirmation, half her mind fixed on the smell of lemon soap she was running through her hair. Really, she could probably convince Killian to steal a bar or two for her.

"Are you-did I hurt you?" There's so much vulnerability in his voice, too much for even her fear to prevent her from answering.

"No." She keeps the curtain between them because it's easier being honest if she doesn't have to look into those endless blue eyes. "Not at all Killian. I promise. It's just...It's been a really long time since I shared a bed with someone and it wasn't... it wasn't the greatest, you know?"

She can give him that, that truth that her reasons for leaving are her fuck up, not his. She hears him shuffle closer and suddenly the shower curtain is pressing in, the shadow of his hand leaving heat as he touches her hip through it. "Alright Swan, alright."

Emma swallows, her fingers pressing against his own the other side of the curtain because he loves her and he's letting her leave and really,

 _What did she do to deserve someone like that?_

* * *

Killian Jones is a terrible person to sleep with.

Well okay, he's actually an awesome person to sleep with but sharing a bed with-it's next to torture.

Emma knows that most of this is still her and her need for space but she's trying.

They spent most nights on his ship because Ruby gave them one too many grins when she stayed with him at Granny's and between Gold's return and the bitches of Darkness, Emma welcomes the peace that she feels with the soft rocking of the boat under her. It's the best sleep she could get.

Or would be, if Killian wasn't a fucking octopus.

Consciously, he's as respectful of her boundaries as a monk. She'd shared her stories with him in between sips of rum and long nights. Neal. The group homes. The desire for just something that was her own, even a shitty bed. So he gets it, never complains about it when he wakes to an inevitably empty bed smelling of her. He gets it when she pulls away in the afterglow, needing to occupy her own space to be okay remaining in his bed for a few more hours. He just smiles and says that he's so grateful she's letting him in. So happy she's staying longer.

At this point, she's pretty sure she could smack him and he'd find some twisted gift in the gesture. It frightens her, a little. So she tries.

But unconscious Killian? Unconscious Killian is a snuggler.

At first she thought it was funny, dread pirate of the seven-seas or whatever reaching for the nearest source of warmth in his sleep and wrapping around her like she was his favourite teddy bear. (Like he needed the warmth because, Jesus, the man was a furnace) She'd brought it up to him once and he'd looked down, ashamed and muttered something about Milah and needing to feel her heartbeat in the night and she felt like an _asshole_. And then, he proceeded to offer to sleep in a hammock next to the bed if it would make her feel more comfortable.

Like, next to his bed. _His_ bed.

Then, she felt like an asshole who drowned puppies and stole ice cream from toddlers.

So she was trying, she really was. Staying later each time she stayed over. A handful, of times she even managed to nap between sex and him strangling her. She got that he needed it, now more than ever with Gold trying to fuck with her head and all that naked fear on his face and in his touch.

But tonight? Tonight was a little much.

Her parents-her perfect, fairytale parents are liars and meeting Lily was some sick cosmic joke and really, what can she believe in now? Everything seems sideways and it makes the back of her neck prickle with awareness.

 _What next?_

And there's the man who has an arm thrown over her ribs, his brace (hook removed) laying on her thigh, his nose against her ear. His heat seeping against her back. His smell: salt, sea, and semen blanketing her nose. And it's a lot, it is. But Emma is trying.

 _"Don't you know Emma? It's you."_ But what else was a lie? If her parents, Snow White and fucking Prince Charming can steal a child, what else is false? Was it destiny, meeting Hook under that pile of bodies and coming to know him? Is Killian just another pawn in someone's game meant to torment her like Lily or die on her or-

She can't fucking breathe. Every point of contact is suffocating her and she needs to get away now but her limbs aren't cooperating and all she can do is weakly kick his shin as black spots prickle against her eyelids.

"Swan-what is?" Suddenly, his entire weight is lifted and Emma is gasping for air, clutching her throat and clawing at the sheets for an anchor.

"Emma," He's not touching her but his voice reverberates through the cabin, making her eyelashes flutter. "Tilt your chin up. Chin up, lass. Good girl. Now one leg over the other, lock your ankles. Swan, listen to me. Excellent. Alright put your right arm under your head, fold it out. Now breathe, Emma. Breathe."

It helps somehow, listening to her commands as she feels her airway open so she can gulp in air greedily against the blackness. She feels him stirring around her, hears the swish of clothes and then she feels the soft velvet of one of his cabin blankets cover her legs.

She didn't realize she was shivering until then.

"It's the sweat, love. It's making you cool." His voice is steady, in-command and it makes her feel a little less off-kilter. "I can give you my hand, if you'd like."

She tries to not but he barks a quick order about her chin so she just reaches her hands forward until they're grasping his fingers, clawing at them as the gripping panic slowly subsides, leaving her trembling in cold and exhaustion. Emma finally opens her eyes, finding narrowed slits of blue studying her with objective concern.

"What was-" And fuck her if her voice wasn't a wreck.

"Panic attack," He answers smoothly, roving over her form. "Seen enough of them on a ship. Usually this position is used for drowning victims but I wasn't going to let you choke on your own tongue and an open airway seemed wise. You're going to be freezing through Swan, with how worked up you were. Do you mind if I pull the blanket up higher?"

It breaks her heart a little, that he knows so well what to do. That he has to ask before he touches her even though he was inside her hours ago. So she nods her head, swallowing her heavy tongue and answering in the affirmative.

He nudges the blanket up her shoulder with his brace, letting her keep her tight grip on his hand before he reached over for one of the water bottles they kept, unscrewing it with his teeth and handing it to her. She drank the fluid gratefully, finishing it off before throwing it away and reaching for him again.

He goes patiently, laying next to her with no point of contact beyond her grip on his fingers. "What was it love?"

Emma barely knows herself. She was thinking about her parents, about Lily, about Killian-and suddenly she was burning and her throat was closing. She shrugs. "I don't-It was too much. I just… I'm just tired."

And she was, the (panic attack, fuck, she'd never had one of those before. That was awful) having stolen her strength until all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep. Killian nodded thoughtfully, glancing down at their joined hands. "Then sleep Swan. Close your eyes and dream of tomorrow."

He hummed to her, a beautiful lilting thing she didn't even know he could do until she opened her eyes and there was daylight streaming through the windows of his cabin, his hand still held loosely by her palm, calm blue eyes peering back at her.

"You didn't go to sleep, did you?" She means to sound accusatory but her voice is roughened and softened with sleep.

Killian merely grins, smiling at her. "I needed to make sure I didn't turn into an octopus at midnight love. Besides, you snore quite adorably."

And Emma can't help it, she laughs.

* * *

She watches him sleep, in Camelot.

He'd tried to stayed up with her, fought valiantly for three days before finally succumbing to sleep this night. It reminds her of his mortal status, how weak and breakable he seems to her now that she feel the dark hum of immortality in her veins.

She watches as his chest rises and falls, the pattern of it soothing her like nothing else (except perhaps her midnight sojourn when she checked on her son, making sure he was okay too.) It's a new thing to her, this fear of separation. But he and Henry made the darkness abate, leave her alone for a few hours and Henry would have so many questions if she asked to crawl into bed with him.

So she curls up beside him, never touching, and watches him sleep. Smooths out his brow when it wrinkles, accepts his touch when he blindly reaches for her. It works, for the first few hours.

But even though she's next to him, she's alone. He's lost in a dream world she can't bear to tear him from and the darkness creeps in again, whispering for her to go. Retrieve the dagger. Take on the strength to protect his precious breaths forever.

She's down the hall in a strange room before she knows it, Gold's form cackling at her as it calls for her to do it, to take down Regina's pathetic barrier and claim the power to keep them alive, forever.

There's a noise in the corner and she shoots blindly, narrowly missing his head and oh god what would that spell have done if it hit him?

He's half-dressed. His pants still unlaced and vest still unbuttoned, coat thrown hastily over him as she walks in slowly, as if she's a frightened cat.

He's probably right, the way she feels like her skin is peeling off. The way the darkness is taking over the space she once occupied, consuming her until there is nothing left of Emma Swan. Fuck, she hasn't felt so small since prison.

And isn't that just a lovely drag down memory avenue?

"It's just us," He whispers in her hair, fearless in the face of her nearly decapitating him as he holds her loosely, allows her room even as he's beside her, making the darkness his and crawl back in its corner. "Just you and me."

But in the corner of her eye, she can spy him the shadows. The darkness just waiting for him to fall asleep again, for her to be alone and prey again.

Emma whimpers, her knees buckling as he swears in her ear, his brace hard against her back as he keeps her upright, half-carrying her to the nearest seat and laying her down with a whispered, "Emma."

She reaches for him but she's afraid to touch, terrified he'll vanish in smoke and this will all have been a dream, leaving her alone in the world again to fight the hum in her blood for vengeance, for power.

 _"Now dearie-"_

Emma whines again, her hand inches from Killian's distraught face as he touches her body, trying to sooth and find the damage as he murmurs to her. She knows him now. Knows he is trying to glue her back together with his love, with his own very soul.

But Emma Swan doesn't own her own soul now. Isn't the captain of this ship. He can't soothe what's been taken from her because there's no room for either of them here. Just the darkness. Just the song of magic and malfeasance and evil crawling over her, drowning her.

 _"Now dearie,"_

* * *

It's some kind of PTSD, she can recognize objectively. The way she clings to him in bed when she once craved air. The way she wraps around him until every line of his body is on hers, her head against his chest so she can count the beat of his heart: alive and moving. She should probably go see Achie.

Emma just snuggles closer, presses deeper into his chest.

"Swan," He murmurs, his voice heavy with sleep and guilt cuts into her for disturbing him. He's been so tired, so tired since coming back. Since being reborn. Since the Underworld where they said goodbye and she thought him gone forever-

She shuffles closer.

"Can't sleep, love?" He asks her hair, his naked wrist coming around her ribs and Emma welcomes it, the weight of his limb so she can feel him better.

But, they're fine. Really. Nothing to see here.

"Go back to bed," She whispers, kissing the center of his sternum before resuming the careful count of his heart. Thud-thud-thud. Seventy-three. Seventy-three beats per minute is perfectly normal. Perfectly healthy. Thud-thud-thud.

"Not unless you sleep too. What's got your thoughts all tangled up, hmm love?" He asks, blinking the dreams from his eyes and no, he needs his sleep. She doesn't know what dying did to his body but she's sure he needs to sleep.

"It's nothing. Go back to bed, Killian." Her voice comes out like it's been raked over coals and she hates it because she knows now that he's alert, feels it in the shift of muscles as he tangles a hand in her hair.

"Emma, I'm...I'm fine sweetheart."

 _No,_ she wants to scream _. You died and I killed you and Hades tortured you and Zeus brought you back and nothing, nothing is fine about any of this_. But her mouth is full of ash so she just presses her nose against him, trying to hide the shiver that goes down her spine.

Killian sighs wearily, turning them slightly until there's space between them but Emma can't have it. She can't stand the air between flesh on flesh and she's scrambling against him, trying to bring herself level again because no, no, no. She can't let go. He'll disappear. Just like before, leaving an empty space where he once resided. That open, gaping cavern that was left behind when he died and-

He pushes into her, half-hard and barely moving, but it's such a welcome invasion, such a delicious and reassuring filling of the emptiness that she stills, letting him turn them both to their sides and draw her thigh further of his hip. "Right here, love. Always, always beside you."

It's gentle lovemaking that follows but she doesn't protest this time. So feverishly glad that he exists to knit her together, to fill the space inside her until he can't leave her. She can't leave him. They're a one-celled organism as his cock pulls and pushes into her. The heat simmers, building so slowly she's taken by surprise when her body clenches around him, trying to tighten her leg so he can't pull away.

He doesn't, coming with her and hand reaching over to pull her closer, unconcerned about the fact that there was no condom and a mess will soon happen. It's just the two of them. Alive. In the same bed.

Emma can't bear to let go.

"I'm not moving Swan," Killian rasps against her forehead. "Go to sleep, I'll be right here in the morning."

She does and he is. Mess between them and all.

* * *

She doesn't know why she thinks of it. It's been years since her half-thought dream when she was sixteen, wishing for a bed and a space that was her own. It's days before her wedding and she's awake, exhilarated and in-love and it's the oddest place her thoughts could possibly wander.

But she has to smile to herself, chuckle a little at her teenage self because here she shares a bed, a home with another human being and nothing could make her happier.

She's promising to share a life in two days time. Think of that, a life.

But she can, she is. Because she finally has enough space to spread and grow and be her own person and Killian doesn't gnaw into that. He isn't invasive. He's supportive and encouraging and simply beside her person, excited to see her spread her wings and follow her where she goes.

Who would have thought love could be like that?

"My love, I can hear your thoughts turning. What's going about that pretty head of yours well before daybreak?" He yawns as he asks, a giant, sweeping thing that makes her grin and shuffle closer.

The action makes him wrap his wrist around her ribs, his hand sweeping up and down her back as his smile kisses her temple. "Nothing. I'm just-I'm happy, you know."

He kisses her again, nudging a thigh through her legs and pulling her half on-top of him. "Hmm? I'm glad for it then. But even Saviours need their sleep, love."

Emma chuckles then, her breath warm against his neck because yeah, she's tired but she's nearly giddy, bouncing on her toes with joy because this man wants to marry her. Wants her forever and isn't that truly what she wanted at sixteen? Not to be alone, but to be with someone who would be beside her? Wasn't she just settling for her own space when what she truly needed was someone next to her to inspire her?

Really, she was a moron.

"You know, I distinctly remember a Swan who didn't snuggle, as you would say." His voice is light, punctuated by him pulling her even closer. "Tell me, when did the Swan start turning into an octopus at midnight?"

It's an old joke, what she told him originally about his sleep patterns on his ship and now undeniably true about her because she doesn't sleep unless she hears his heart under her cheek, his fingers against her scalp. She's greedy for it, and it just makes her grin again.

Because it's _their_ space.

She gives the soft spot on his sternum a lick just to make him whine before she settles closer. "When she fell in love with a pirate, I suppose."

It's meant to say half in jest but she feels his body roll, the way it always does when she says those words. The way his breathing hitches like it's the first time and god, she hopes that never stops.

"I love you too, you know?" He murmurs softer, closer to her ear and without the joke, just the closeness and the the wonder and her heart thuds against her own ribcage.

"Yeah," Emma sighs, glinting at the diamond on her finger. "I figured that was the point of the ring on my finger."

It's supposed to come out as a joke, but her voice cracks halfway through because the orphan inside has decided to come alive tonight and she still can't quite believe that someone wants her forever, especially this man.

He seems to sense it because she's suddenly totally on-top of him, knees meeting shins and elbows to ribs and everything is uncoordinated and punctuated for a moment before it is absolutely, totally perfect.

"I love you, Emma Swan," He whispers and meets her eyes when he does until she blushes and kisses him, waiting for him to inevitably sing her to sleep. Which he does, _dork._

She wakes in a messy splay of tangled limbs and awful hair and morning breath and-she's so totally, utterly happy.

For a minute.

* * *

"What the hell do you mean, you're not staying here?" There's a thin reed of panic in her voice and Emma douses it quickly because she's an idiot and he's marrying her. He's not running away with her father into the sunset.

(She's also never conjuring that image into her mind again.)

"A seafaring man does not take superstitions lightly. The last thing you and I need is a stitch of bad luck."

And while fear is still thrumming through her veins, his words soothe her, make a small smile appear on his face because, what a total nerd. A nerd who loves her and is afraid of century-old tradition just to make their wedding perfect.

Fuck, she loves him.

A little bit of trepidation must still show on her face because he sways into her space, gentle crinkle at his eyes. "After tomorrow, there'll be no getting rid of me."

And it's the perfect thing to say, it really is. But little orphan Annie has decided to show up and she can't stop the, "Promise?" from rising to her throat any more than she can stop the weather.

He doesn't seem to mind though, face full of affection and hook gliding across her hip as he nods. "Aye."

He kisses her sloppily, his own grin getting in the way and that's what sells her. He's just as excited as she is, just as bubbly and elated and stupid and it's perfect, that kiss. So she let's him go, watching as he walks out the front door (their front door) with a ridiculous jig of his eyebrows and it makes her laugh and settle.

Of course he's coming back. He always come back.

* * *

His phone rings thrice before it wakes him from his sleep and Killian answers it before he's truly awake. The Dark Fairy set upon them. Emma is in danger. Henry has been kidnapped-

"Hello? Hook?" The lad's voice is distorted through the device but he recognizes it, sitting up against the headboard as adrenaline begins to spike his blood.

"Aye lad, what is it?" Just hours ago he asked the boy to be his best man. Was it something as benign as losing the rings? Or has the crocodile's mother truly come for-

"Er-it's not…" He's awkward and while normally Killian finds his teenage fumbling endearing, his heart is too filled with dread tonight.

"Lad, out with it."

"It's...it's mom. I think...I think she's having a nightmare."


	2. Chapter 2

When Killian Jones is six, he's sharing a bed with the increasingly wide berth of his mother and all too happy to share it. He's gathered they're poor (vicious kids on the street, kicks from discerning shop owners, the way Liam sometimes knicks bread for them to eat) but his mother always smells of lavender and hums him to sleep. Her hands are still soft and everything about her touch speaks of love: the way she cards her fingers through his hair when he's had a nightmare, the way she lets him clutch at his fingers when they're at the market, even the way he used to snuggle into her neck before her body became unwieldy with the carriage of his sister.

Liam has a cot in another room and he know's he's supposed to want it, the big-boy room but he loves his mother and having him close and warm seems to help her pain, so he's happy to lay beside her.

"I love you Killian," She whispers one night, her skin damp with sweat and eyes blurred but fingers still gentle. Always gentle.

He wishes he could do more. But he knows she gets cold in the night so he folds his tiny legs under her growing belly and curls around her.

"Love you too mum."

When he wakes in the morning, she doesn't.

* * *

He's eight and his bed is a cot on a ship below his brother. It's stiff and smells funny but it's alright because he has Liam above him and his father always around him to light a lantern when he wakes, terrified in his cot.

His father was away much more before: before his mother passed, before they lost their sister to the world. Liam has called him unkind things. 'Drunk' being the most frequent, but he pat Killian's back and the touch was kind so Killian loved him. Loved him like he had loved his mother, with every fiber of his being.

Besides, Liam could be mean sometimes. He called Killian an idiot sometimes.

It's one of those nights, the memory of his mother's cold form pressed against his eyelids when he sleeps until he's thrashing, crying out and jumping awake in the boat's small cabin. He takes in his surroundings, playing the old game his brother had taught him. Look. He's in the boat. He's in his cot. There's a blanket on him. _What colour is the blanket? Gray, good. What's the name of the ship? The Lady Majesty. Good. What day is it? Sunday. Good. You're safe Killian, you're safe._

It grounds him, lets him gulp in air until the lantern flickers out and suddenly he can't see. He can't see the number of threads in Liam's blanket or the swirl on the floorboard he's focused on so many times. Can't count the number of horns on the mantle. Panic erupts in his tiny frame and he cries out.

"Father! Father!"

Less than a second passes and his father is _there_ , real and alive and flicking the lantern back on. Not cold and gone like his mother. The light is appreciated, but his father's presence is more soothing even than that as he approaches his bed, leaning down.

"See, there's nothing to be afraid of."

" _Close your eyes, my little love. There's nothing to be afraid of."_

His father is warm and smells of rum and sea. It's comforting and familiar, making Killian's eyes quiver with weariness as he breaths him in. He's safe here, his father within arm's reach.

But he can't reach out. If Liam saw, he'd tease him. So instead, he settles back into bed and listens.

"...If you just look inside, we're all braver than we think if we just look deep enough...before you know it, you're going to be a man, son."

Son. The very word grounded Killian. He was nothing to the world, beaten in the streets for being dirty or smelly or poor. But he was his father's son. His brother's sibling. It gave him purpose, made his heart steady.

"I'm just trying to prepare you," His father clasped his shoulder, the warmth of his large palm soothing against his shoulder. "Because you're going to be a man soon and then you're going to have to answer life's big question...What kind of man are you going to be?"

He licks his lips, his tired mind trying to answer the question. He certainly doesn't want to be like the bullies who broke Liam's lip before they left. Doesn't want to be like Mr. Amirsh, who used to sneer at them and call them filthy. He doesn't want to be like Captain Averish of this ship, who eyes him like a butcher and carries a heavy switch to deliver punishment with haste and regard. No, Killian hasn't known many good men in his life. But he knows his father.

His father with his warm touch and constant patience. His father, who taught him how to make knots a fortnight ago and who doesn't laugh at his dreams. His father is a good man. The only good man Killian knows. So he answers.

"I want to be just like you."

And there's something wide and sad in his father's smile but there's a gentle touch on his forehead and he's whispering for him to fall asleep and so he does.

His father is gone in the morning and suddenly, Killian doesn't know _any_ good men.

* * *

He shares a bed with his brother on the floor of the galley aboard Captain Silver's ship when he's sixteen. It's made of straw and often smells rancid if he and Liam don't wash it out over the deck before dawn every day. It's uncomfortable and itchy, but embarrassingly enough Killian is thankful to be sharing Liam's space, even at his age. He still has nightmares, his mother's corpse, his father's abandonment, but his brother's presence beside him makes it bearable. Knowing that even if he jerks awake, there's a person who loves him a breath away eases the ache inside. And on the nights it doesn't, Liam is still there, holding his head into a pot when too much rum makes him sick. Mopping the sweat from his brow from the dreams. Holding his trembling form and pouring the liquor on his back after Captain Silver's deep lashes.

He should be over it at his age, already accustomed to the vile taste of rum and lost his virginity to an unfortunate whore at the Captain's gamble, but Liam is the only thing anchoring him to the world and he's bloody thankful for how close they sleep, even if it's forced.

Forced. That's what he imagines a good deal of his brother's life is. Shackled to a cruel master by his father's weakness. Shackled to a weak brother who drinks too much and has none of his dedication, his dreams.

Killian loves Liam with his whole heart but it's such a battered, torn-apart thing and he thinks it's a poor exchange for him.

But Liam doesn't and Liam plans, even as they scrub fish guts from the deck.

"Ten silvers," He says, eyes bright as he pulls out the forms, filling him in with plans of the navy.

It would suit him, Killian recognizes. His outstanding, always-in-good-form older brother. He'd make a fine captain one day. But Killian? Killian has to tie his hair back and his nose fills with hatred every time he swabs the decks. Drink is his weakness and it would take a poor sod indeed to let Killian Jones join the navy.

But he loves Liam and doesn't want to hold him back. And then Silver, Silver appears and he wants to rip his damned beating heart out and when Liam leaves, well, that's when reasoning leaves the ship as well and they both know it.

Silver smiles at him, his fingers playing with the crop at his thigh, taunting. "How about a little wager then, _Captain_ Jones?"

When he goes to sleep that night, Liam curled beside him after tearing the papers of their emancipation that _he_ earned and Killian threw away, the cot feels too small for the first time. He doesn't deserve Liam's presence, Liam who tossed away his freedom to stay with him. Liam who took beatings for him and stole water for him and deserved-

Tears gathered hot in his eyes and he swallowed harshly against them. He wouldn't cry. He couldn't. That would bring even more shame to the Jones. To his brother's name.

"It's alright Killian," He doesn't know how Liam sensed his mood even when he was turned away from him but his voice is a soft lilt. "I'm not angry. I promised you didn't I? Come hell or highwater, I'm not leaving you."

The tears make it down his cheeks then, wetting the soggy mattress and making Killian burn deeper with shame because he did this. He kept his brother here and even then, Liam doesn't hate him. Instead, he quietly grabs for Killian's hand and keeps murmuring, promising him that he won't be alone.

Killian cries himself to sleep that night, on the dingy shared fabric next to a man who is far better than he. The only thing he can do is choke back a sob and whisper harshly in into the straw,

"No more rum, I promise."

It's not enough but it's all Killian has and it seems to be enough for Liam.

"Okay brother, okay."

* * *

Killian Jones is eighteen the first time he sleeps alone.

The hammock is small, his gangly legs nearly drape over it but it's off the floor and world's comfier than his previous conditions on that shared mat with his brother. His blanket is warm and dry, and there's the loud sound of the crew snoring comforting him.

He can't sleep a wink.

It's pathetic, he knows, to be unable to sleep by his lonesome at his age but the loss of contact, of another person's weight near him is so new that it's troublesome. That and the ill-churning of his gut whenever he thinks of their mission.

Liam is bright-eyed and proud to be such an important quest for their king but something about the whole thing nags at Killian. The secrecy. The Pegasus feathers.

He's been a boat most of his life but the reminder that they are in the bloody air and not the sea prickles under her skin, makes his breath catch unsteadily.

He rolls over again, playing the old game. The floorboard on the left is slightly warped. Sam's cot has a tear to the right. Gray's blanket is homemade from a wife and pink and used and loved.

It doesn't work.

He sighs, gives up, and get out of bed. He means to simply go on deck, clear his head and look at the stars as he did when he was younger. His feet however, find themselves shuffling outside the captain's cabin.

Liam opens before he even decides to knock, a knowing smirk on his brother's face.

"Can't sleep little brother?"

"Younger," He correct automatically, straightening up so Liam's only got an inch on him. A highly disputed inch.

Liam makes a noise in the back of his throat but waves him in all the same and clicks the door shut behind him. "Missing my handsome self in your cot?"

Killian snorts. "As if. I just wanted to check on our coordinates. You do know where we're going, don't you brother? Or shall we just descend into some unspoken part of the ocean?"

It's meant in jest but there's a somberness to his tone he didn't mean and he sees Liam's face fall.

"Killian, you know I can't tell you. I was sworn to-"

"Secrecy until landing, I know." He finishes, a weary sigh coming out of him as the pinpricks of warning erupt under his skin again.

He shivers slightly, shaking his head. "You're so though, Liam. That this is right?"

He doesn't doubt his brother, his captain for a second. But Killian's never known another good man in his life and he doesn't know this secretive king. The whole thing makes him wary.

Liam just yawns, taking off his hat and downing his sleeping clothes with an eyeroll. "Yes Killian. I'm sure. Come dawn, you'll see. We'll be back home in no time and in the king's good graces soon enough. Then you'll apologize for all this reluctance when we're rich as thieves and married in our own homes."

His brother, the dreamer. It makes a smile quirk on his lips and Killian forces the feeling of wrongness down, standing and nodding. "Aye Captain, whatever you say. I should let you get your beauty rest for the journey, gods know you're a poor enough sod to look at with it."

Liam snorts as he climbs into his actual bed, patting the small mattress with a cock of his brow. "Sure you can manage without me wee one? There's room to share."

The mattress seems soft but small, and Killian still has some dignity left. So he snorts and heads for the door. "Bleeding git, get some rest."

"You as well little brother," Follows him to the door.

When he's cradling Liam's cold body in the same room in the morning, he can't help but wish he'd simply swallowed his dignity and spent one last night sleeping next to someone who loved him.

* * *

Despite what he tells the bumbling coward of a man on his ship, he hadn't touched Milah the day he took her aboard his ship. He's spent hours talking to her, wooing her with stories of far-off lands and great raids, but as much as he's a pirate, he's never once _taken_ an unwilling woman and Milah hasn't seemed to want him in that way.

But his seventh time at port with her, she showed up with a burn on her arm and wet, pleading eyes.

"I can't do it anymore, please, please take me away. I'll do anything." She's desperate and the moment he catches sight of the violent red splotch on her forearm, he assumed the worst.

She must have known because she shook her head, still fighting back tears. "It wasn't him. He..he's too weak to do that. It was one of the other villagers. She's a widower and she hates me just because of him and I...Killian, I just can't do it anymore."

Milah falls into his arms sobbing and he catches her, soothing her with his touch and a whispered reassurance that of course she could go. _Of course_ she was welcome.

He leads her back to the Jolly that night and frightens away her bug of a husband without much fight the next day. He gives her his quarters and takes to the hammocks because she's still a lady to him and Liam taught him manners once upon a time.

But it isn't until she's been on his ship a fortnight that he actually touches her and it isn't even a grand story to tell of seducing this beautiful, wild woman.

He has a nightmare.

He's had them since he was a child but they've gotten worse with age. His father's abandonment on top of his mother's death. And now? Now he dreams of Liam. The black tar in his blood that reached to his face, the slowly chilling weight of him in his arms until crew members managed to pry Liam from his grasp. The frightened, wide-eyed stare before the poison took him.

It's the worst of them all.

He wakes on a gasp to gentle hands. "Sssh, ssh, Killian it's okay. It's okay."

He sits bolt upright in his cot, panting loudly in the dark as sweat clings to his hands, making his skin clammy and tight. He can still see his brother's corpse in his mind's eye and he wheels around, nearly feral. The crew no better than to touch him when he's like this. They pretend to snore on, despite the volume of his cries in the galley. Furious, he turns to lash into his waker until to find gentle, worn hands smoothing his forehead. The faint smell of orchid wafting over him, warmth of another person he hadn't felt since he was a child. A woman's touch.

"I'm sorry," Milah steps back at his expression. Her hand drops from his head and he wants to keen at the loss of it. "It looked like you were having a nightmare. My-my boy used to get them. It helped if I...I'm sorry."

He can make her out, shuffling awkwardly in the dark and Killian shakes his head, trying to see past the dream. He's made this woman feel unwanted and this shared moment in the dark, that needs to be his priority now. Taking a shaky inhale, Killian swallows. "It's alright lass. It's not your fault. It's just...it's been awhile since I've been touched in such a manner. It...it was nice. Thank you."

 _Nice_ is perhaps the largest disservice he could do her, but he's well aware that most of his crew is merely pretending to be asleep and he need not seem weaker than he is.

Or as weak, rather.

The light of the moon through the portholes paints everything silver but he can still make out Milah biting her lip, her hands wringing in her new britches before she speaks. "You can...would it help if I...the cabin's quite large. I'm sure we could share the mattress."

It's a lie and they both know it. It's soft and warm, but hardly fitting for two people. It's on his tongue to tell her no. To roll back over and resign himself to another sleepless night. But Killian is tired and cold. He misses the feel of another body pressed next to him and by Milah's shifting of weight, she does too.

He swallows again. "You sure lass? I meant what I said when I promised there was no fee for the ship."

Because he can't fall asleep beside her like she's another common whore. You don't sleep with whores, that's how men end up dead and robbed. But Milah? This recently freed bird, this mother and fighter, she could be something else. But it's up to her. Killian may be a pirate but there are some things even he won't _steal._

There's a pause and Killian's about to roll back over but he catches her steeling her spine before nodding and extending her hand. "I am. I'm sure. Yes."

They share a long, lingering look before Killian grasps her hand in his. She doesn't have delicate hands like his mother. They're warped from nicks cutting wood, tending to the fire, protecting her son, paying for her husband. But there's a realness and solidness to her touch that is all the more for the flaws. That he craves.

He brings her hand to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to her palm, never letting her gaze go as he does. "Aye then lass, that would be welcome."

He follows Milah back to his quarters. He's not sure if she intended only for them to sleep but by the time his back is to the bunk, they're both bare and she's above him, taking him in with every swivel up her hips. She's older than he by years, her breasts and hips lined by the stress of childbirth. Her hair wild and unruly thanks to the winds on the ship.

She's the most beautiful thing he has seen in years and Killian groans when he comes, barely remembering to pull out and waste himself on her belly as she pants through her own orgasm. After, he wipes her down with a wet cloth and she cradles his face in her hands, pressed against him in the small mattress. They're aligned knee-to-shoulder but she's warm and willing and for the first time since Liam died, Killian Jones goes to sleep with a sense of peace. Another person beside him.

He doesn't return to the hammock the next night.

* * *

It's been over two hundred years since he's spent the night in the crew's quarters, and he's as wide awake as he was the last time he was here.

Except this time, he's leaving Neverland rather than returning.

The irony isn't lost on him.

He resists the urge to turn over as he listens to the too-erratic breaths of the woman whose consumed his waking hours.

He had heard her parents succumb to sleep hours ago, the irritating snoring of the prince filling the cabin. Baelfire had the helm until dawn, when he would take over. The damn crocodile had chosen to remain on deck in attempts to speak to his wayward child, and the Queen had retired to the lad's side in his chambers.

Swan had been in there before, but she emerged with a hasty, "He was asking for Regina," before throwing herself into the hammock beside him and pretending to sleep, dodging even her parents questions.

He imagines he can almost feel her heat seeping into the cabin beside him. The softness of her skin under his hand, the wet, delicious taste of her lips-

Gods, he was fucked for this woman.

He hears her roll again in her hammock, hears the loud hiss of breath she lets go.

He wants to get up and hold her. Wants to wrap her in his arms and soothe her worries until she sleeps, her heartbeat loud in his ear. He wants her parents bloody gone and to take her against the wall until she's trembling against him and-

But Emma doesn't want any of those things. Or rather, Emma won't let herself want any of those things because that kiss was all _want._ All liquid desire and racing heat and-

Hook swears, stopping himself from continuing the memory before he has an erection he can do nothing about. His ears catch her restless movements in the quiet and he means to leave her by, he really does but, "Swan-you alright love?"

There's a tense moment where he thinks she won't respond before a loud sigh and he can just make out her rolling onto her back, arms flying above her head in the hammock. "Yeah. I'm fine Hook."

He's embraced his moniker for the past two centuries but he suddenly yearns to hear his name on her lips. "Can't sleep?"

She laughs and it's a hollow, grating thing. "Just been awhile since I was in a shitty bed is all."

He's not nearly as affronted as he knows he should be, too excited about the slightest glimpse past those impenetrable walls of hers. "My ship not to the princess's liking then?"

He can hear her scowl in the dark and it makes him grin. She's a beautiful creature, all riled up. "Trust me, I've been in worst sleeping arrangements than this."

There's a darkness to her tone he recognizes, a loneliness too that makes his heart ache. Makes him want to stretch his arm out and take her hand in his. "Ah, so tell me what sort of accommodations the young Swan had. No goose-bed mattresses, I presume?"

He means to be teasing and light, to take her mind off whatever is keeping her up but she just snorts at him, green eyes nearly glowing in the dark like seastone. "Try prison for one."

 _That_ gives him pause. Because what bloody fool sends someone like Swan to the brig? She' both too lovely to be safe and too fiery not to cause trouble. And what the devil sort of mischief did she get into? The sheriff, the hero of her town. She's got a tongue as sharp as a knife but a heart solid and gold, he's seen it. What crime could possibly-

But apparently he's stayed in his thoughts too long because she misinterprets his silence, turning so her back is to him. "It wasn't even my crime, just so you know. I mean I didn't-oh, what the fuck do I care what you think anyway?"

She last part comes out with a whispered huff and he came make out the turn of her blonde head, the shift of her hair silver under the moonlight but his mind is whirling. "What the hell do you mean it wasn't your crime? Who in bloody hell left you to rot for their crimes?"

He's not half as quiet as he should be and Emma hisses at him, waving frantically at her parents. Silence descends as they both hold their breath, waiting to see if they've woken the Charmings. When his snore fills the air again, they exhale in turn.

"Is it someone in Storybrooke? Someone I've met?" He means to keep the menacing lilt out of his voice but he knows he's failed. His blood is boiling, because all he can think about is the lost, frightened eyes of a child on her face, the guarded woman who had every sign of abandonment and loss he had ever seen and he hates whoever made her that way. Hates with a passion he hasn't felt in a long time.

He's good at that, _hating._

She's silent long enough that Killian thinks he's pushed too far before a mumbled, "No. Let it go, Hook" emerges.

For someone with her superpower, Swan's a bloody dreadful liar. "The Queen? Did she manage it? The Crocodile? Who did they use to..." He knows the rules. No one could really leave the town before she arrived, but they're both devious enough to have schemed a way to land the Saviour in the brig without being there.

"Hook I said drop it-"

"Come on Swan, it had to be one of them. The only other person connected to you lot who managed to get out was Baelfire and he-"

Her entire body tenses. He can see it, the wings of her shoulderblades through the thin _tank top_ she's wearing. The stiffening of her neck, curl of her calves, even the faint clench of her delectable backside, the moment he says the name.

Horror wells into his throat like bile. "But he-he's the lad's father…Did he, _Emma did he send you to the brig when you were with child_?"

Killian doesn't even bother to try and keep the disgust from his tone because he would've hung his own damn crew for daring and how could Bae…

He's out of him hammock, hook bringing his boots closer to him before she responds and he jerks the laces on. His movement makes her turn to him.

"Hook what are you doing?"

"Going to have a word with the gentleman upstairs, as it were." Crocodile or no, he's going to bloody that boy for leaving her. What kind of monster…

"Jesus fuck, Hook no!" Her arm reaches out, slender hand snatching at his bicep and clinging there as she whispers angrily, eyes feral and sharp. "Look no one...no one else knows, so just stop it, alright!"

Her free hand is flailing but the fear in her eyes and the desperation in her tone lets him know that she's talking about her parents, and he feels the dragon in him recoil some. He's still furious, aye, but he's not willing to risk injury to Swan when she looks ready to throw herself off his bloody ship. Again.

Killian nods slowly, unlacing his boots and grabbing his flask instead, laying flat on his back in the hammock and taking a long pull of the rum. He waits, feeling her angry stare still burning him, her fist still clenched on his arm. Slowly, he removes the flask from his lips and nudges it onto the fingers latched onto him in clear invitation.

There's a pause, but finally her grip on him loosens and she snatches his flask to her, quick as a stray, her touch gone and leaving him bereft. Even if he was going to have a bruise in the morning.

Bloody strong woman.

He doesn't pry further, can't when she's still coiled even tighter than before and his chest aches as he watches her blatantly, her fingers nearly shaking as she takes deep gulps of the liquor. Killian lets her have her silence, simply holds his arm out of the hammock as he waits. When she finally passes the flask back, he presses his fingers to hers before he takes it. "As you wish Swan."

A shudder goes down her spine at the words but she turns toward him, her body curling in on itself and making her seem impossibly young in the dark. Killian frowns, taking a drag and then leaning to drop the flask. "Love, are you cold? I could fetch you another-"

"No," Swan cuts him off, hand outstretched for the flask even as she keeps her gaze on the floor. He obliges, handing it back to her.

Time stretches between them like that, her father's snores softening as he and Emma take deep drags of the flask, passing it between them. The heat of her hand sears him every time it touches and he faintly wonders if there'll be some sort of physical mark on him in the morning. But the rum is doing its job. She's still curled up under her blanket but her grip on her knees is a little less severe, her thighs untucked slightly.

"He asked for her-Regina. Called out for her in his sleep." Her tones not slurred but it is softer, a delicate thing that hovers between them as she hands back the flask.

He keeps his palm on hers as he tries to piece together her meaning, his face softening the minute he understands. "Your lad?"

"Yeah...it's fine. I mean, he was pretty much asleep and had no idea what he was saying. And like, I get it. She's raised him. It's just…"

She won't look at him, her face turned into the hammock so he can just make out a sliver of her cheek in the tangled mane of her hair. But her voice peeters off and Hook swallows. Words which were always so easy, seemed too clumsy and ill-fitted now. Instead, he gently pries the flask from her limp grasp, setting it down gently before reaching back slowly. He keeps watching her, his movements slow and obvious in case she feels the need to pull back again.

Swan doesn't.

His fingers wrap around hers, her touch cold despite the metal on his own hand. He slots their fingers together, pressing gently down at her knuckles and glancing back at her face for approval.

She keeps her eyes turned away, but her fingers press back, so softly he's not sure it wasn't wishful thinking.

"Your boy loves you Swan. You saved him. You'll bring him home in the morning." He murmurs.

He doesn't expect a response and doesn't get one, but he keeps her hand in his all night, even when he hears her breathing finally even out and sees her shoulders fall as she slips into sleep.

Killian knows he'll have to let go before she wakes or face even higher walls and more vacant stares but he can't help but indulge in this simple touch as he stares at the ceiling.

It's been two hundred years and he still can't sleep in the bloody hammock but this time, he stares at the wall with a smile on his face

And hope within his grasp.

* * *

He dreams of that touch, almost every night he's alone in a different bar, in a different tavern: away from ship and sea. He dreams of the kiss as well, the way her body has chased his, her hips falling against his. The taste of her mouth, hot and damp with Neverland air. The softness of her hair in his fingers, of her neck as he skimmed down it. Sometimes, he's imagination runs rampant and he paints the rest of her body in his mind, all white lines and swan's grace while he tastes her core with his tongue, feels her clench around his knuckles. He fucks her standing up and she rides him into submission, rosy tip of her breasts bouncing. Some of the dreams are like that, the ones that leave his cock hard and aching when he wakes.

But the others are softer. Just the memory of holding her hand that last night in Neverland. The way her nails, once perfect little ovals he marveled over, had become chipped and cracked with endless days of fighting. How her fingers were cooler even then the better around his own digits and he worried for her health but she refused a blanket. How despite the dents and nicks he could feel in her palm, her hands were still so soft, a slender weight in his grasp. He dreams of holding her hand as they lay side-by-side on a beach, watching the sunset with nothing between them but peace. He thinks of walking to the awful dinner run by the bloody wolves, her hand tucked neatly into his.

And those dreams? He wakes from them and his _soul_ aches.

Until even the Jolly cannot banish the restlessness, the hollowness that he feels.

But then one day a bird flies down, bearing a message…

* * *

He'd had to chase a number of miscreants away from his spot in the park, confusing considering the bench he is on is unforgiven and too small for his frame. The air is biting enough for him to be thankful for his long coat and crows have clearly made a home in this place. So truly, Hook's not terribly sure why it seemed so popular with the smelly, disorderly men he'd had to threaten away.

Of course, one of them had been eyeing his rings, so perhaps it's that.

It's hardly the worst accommodations he's had in his lifetime. The open air dilutes much of the smell (and this city smells rank. Polluted and fool or garbage and foodstuffs and harlots. Enough that it made him queasy for the first hour.) and he's always appreciated the sight of the night sky above his head, even if the stars here are unfamiliar and hard to spot with the never ceasing light of this city. He found a place with some foliage to provide some cover, paltry as it may be.

Really, what bollocks kind of name is New York anyways? What happened to the old one?

The plank he's laying on is stiff but doesn't is dry and that's enough for him. He could fall asleep here without complaint.

But his blood is humming, his knuckles tight with anticipation and very soul nearly singing. It keeps his thoughts buzzing even when she shuts his eyes and turns his head against the wood.

An address. After nearly a week of searching in this godforsaken place, he had found Swan's location.

The paper is crumbled against his breast pocket, warming against his heart and already well-worn by his greedy fingers. It's been the longest year in Killian Jones's never ending life and finally, finally it's coming to an end.

 _Swan. Swan. Swan._ His heart thumps, excitement building in his core and making him grin against the cold, pulling the collar of his jacket up higher. In just a few scant hours, he'll be able to see the blonde hair and stormy eyes that haunted his dreams. She'll be so close he could reach out and touch her-the softness of her hair, the smoothness of her skin-

Hook turns fitfully for the next few hours, adrenaline too high to sleep before he gives up, simply watching the sun rise as dawn creeps over and lets the smirk stay on his face.

At last.

 _Swan. Swan. Swan._

* * *

 _Cursed._

He touches his lips again, as if rubbing hard enough would remove the magic.

 _Cursed._

He's a bloody fucking fool.

Fool for getting himself tricked by the witch. Fool for thinking one apology could make up for a lifetime of misdeeds. Fool for hoping he could be redeemed. Fool for calling out Swan's name with his unworthy, disgraced mouth.

 _Cursed._

He turns on his side in his rented room. Granny's was like many of inns he had stayed at in port (minus the brothel, unless one counted Ruby). It was clean and serviceable, the floral print on the walls pale, the sheets dry and slightly scratchy, the mattress used but supportive. There was a weathered little nightstand in the corner, an open rack for clothes he didn't have. All this space. All this emptiness reminding him of how much he didn't have. How lacking he was in this town.

A man without employment, without possessions, and seemingly without pride.

A pirate without his ship.

Really, he must have been daft, thinking Swan would want him. What had he to offer? A mangled body and a pocket full of useless coin?

 _Cursed._

Granny's is undoubtedly one of the most objectively comfortable places he has had rest in a long time, but the room simply makes him seem out of place and otherworldly, highlights how totally wrong he is here.

 _With her._

Cursed.

Hook scowls, ripping his hand from his face and turning to watch the moon from the window.

Sleep never comes.

* * *

He's catalogued every nuance of Emma Swan in his brain sense he's met her. (Even when he wished he hadn't.) It's a tick of his, her little traits filling up space in his head.

The way she led with her left leg when she swung on the beanstalk, slightly favouring the limb.

He saw the way she pulled her small leather jacket tighter around her shoulders, like a shield, when she headed out the door as he watched in the shadows of Storybrooke for a moment to kill the crocodile.

The way her lip trembled on the 'e' when she said Baelfire's name in this realm, those green eyes dark and confounding as the caps of a wave in a storm.

Her hair was golden in the heat of Neverland, a banner for him to follow through the leafy depths of the jungle. It snarled with the tepid air, curling at the tips. Under the eerily bright moonlight of the enchanted land, it turned flaxen and nearly glowed. He could pick out darker, copper strands when she crouched by the fire. Watched as it was straight, pulled away from her face when she first woke. Saw her hand as she tugged it back, clearly wishing for a tie to keep it up, which would have exposed her elegant neck to him.

The constant worry lines on the corner of her lips are gone the first time he faces her in New York and it makes her seem softer, younger-happier, even. Right up until she knees him and slams the door in his face, of course.

She adds three shakes of cinnamon to her cocoa in the morning, one if she indulges at lunch, and the largest dollop of cream if it's night. She consumes her little cheese-and-bread treats in a matter of seconds, voracious bites and slightly twitchy eyes he recognizes as someone who still expects their meal to be taken. On long watches or under duress, however, she'll forgo eating almost entirely with the exception of large, dark cups of coffee and disgusting little picks of tack she calls 'poptarts'.

The right side of her mouth twitches upward first when she's being playful. Her knees lock when she's furious. She's protective of her pregnant mother but can't stand to be in a room alone with her. She often drives her little yellow contraption when she wants to be alone. She was a specific look just for her son, one that seems to make her illuminate from the inside out. He's the only person she initiates contact with. Her neck aches if she spends too long at the sheriff's station by the magic box. She loves boots and layers and leathers and had a tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

He hoards these little tidbits inside his brain, greedy to uncover every facet in the mystery that is Emma Swan.

All up until now.

He never wanted to know that she didn't make _a sound_ when she cried.

He hadn't even realized it as they fled the castle. He simply held her to his side and raced after the shocked prince and distraught wolf into the woods. Ruby had broken down shortly after, curling up on a log and sobbing as Dave went to sit by her, offering awkward condolences about the woman he had no idea he was supposed to marry after building a fire. It was only when he led her to another log and turned to her that he had seen the wetness of cheeks gleaming in the dim glow. Her fingers were wrapped tightly in her cloak, tears continuing to bead their way down the slope of her face quietly.

"Swan," He couldn't stop himself from reaching out to comfort her, rubbing gentle circles under her eyes and feeling his heart crack for her. "Emma."

It hard briefly stopped beating when she mentioned that she should have vanished out of existence. Never for him to have met her. Never for Henry to have been born. Leaving him in that pit of endless vengeance and-

-and then Snow was alive and her parents were together (and not attempting to stab each other). And the events of the day seemed to catch up with them as they fell asleep, Ruby and Snow curled curled close to each other as Dave found a place he seemed to deem respectfully separate but clearly close enough to keep an eye on his wayward wife. The stranger Emma had rescued was a bit further out, clearly keen to be gone. (A headache in the making) Killian eyed the mossy ground critically. There was a place a few paces left of the dwindling fire that seemed suitable, the grass overgrown and dry there. The fact that it was just within arms reach of where Swan had sprawled out was merely coincidental.

Of course.

He pulled the brown overcoat off, preparing to use it to shield himself from the ground when he stopped, turning to her form, wrapped in darkness and the blue of her cloak, facing away from him.

"Swan," He whispers, slowly lowering himself down beside her.

He doesn't want to wake her, gods knows she needs her rest. But there's something in the unnatural stillness of her curled legs, the tense lines of her cloak pulled tight around her. It's her breathing that finally gives her away, loud enough in the quiet night that he can hear the stilted, forced breaths.

Killian creeps closer, slowly and deliberately stretching his arm out to rest lightly on her shoulder, intent on making out her form as best he could in the dark. "Are you alright?"

She jerks slightly under his hand but doesn't pull away and it sends a slight thrill through him despite the circumstances.

"Yeah," Her voice is low and hoarse. "Just cold."

Without moving his hand he retrieves his coat with his hook, laying it across her without thought. The movement brings a whiff of her up to his nose: mossy earth, dried sweat, dankness from the Queen's dungeon, perfume and richness from Midas's ball, that ephemeral, tempting scent of sunshine and fire he'd learned was _Emma Swan_ , and...salt.

He cursed low on his breath, leaning over to put his arm more fully around her, not caring if he got a fist in his face for the move. "Oh love, your mother is fine. It's alright Swan."

Her body turned, however, instead of away from his half-embrace, she rolled into it, surprising Killian so he stiffened, arm still draped lightly on her shoulder as Emma put her face into his chest, the cold tip of her nose burning him as she hid her crying against him.

For a long exhale, he couldn't breathe. The woman he had lusted for, wanted, chased after (loved) was finally inches away from him. He could feel her breath on his chest, her slender hands wrapped tightly on his jacket, causing her knuckles to brush his abdomen in a way that sent heat singing through his blood.

Of course, none of his fantasies had her literally tearing up during intimate encounters. He scowled to himself.

Fucking wanker.

Here she was, trusting him with this little moment of weakness and he couldn't keep his cock in line.

Forcing his attention away from the way he could feel the soft pressure of her breasts, he gently ran his hand lightly up and down her hair, placing the hooked arm above their heads to ensure no injury would come to her.

"Sush love," He murmured, half-fascinated by the way his words caused movement in loose strands of her hair. "Your mother is alright. You are alright. Everything is going to be okay."

He doesn't stop talking but he does lose track of his words, too focused on how he can feel her heartbeat slowing, how her shin grazes his slightly as she turns, shifting her chin slightly more against him. Time slips away as he simply holds this woman who he was wanted near him for what feels like lifetimes, nearly dizzy with the understanding that she turned to him in comfort, that his battered soul can help ease the ache of hers. It's only when her breathing is slow, nearly even with sleep that he hesitates, wondering if he needs to pull away now.

"Are you...are you going to be well?"

He feels her nod against his sternum and it shoots a bolt through his spine before she takes a long inhale. "Yeah. Sorry I just…"

He can't stop the rhythm of his fingers through her hair, won't stop until she tells him to. He's wanted to feel the lengths of gold since he first spotted her, under all those corpses so long ago. "Nothing to apologize for love, you've had a trying day."

She nods against him again and they lapse into silence for a spell, until he's almost certain that she may have drifted off…

"She didn't know who I was." Her voice is small and it makes his chest tight, his hand twitch with the desire to wrap her fully in his embrace. He knows that voice. It's the one in Neverland when she solved the map. The one on the beanstalk when she spoke about love.

 _An orphan 's an orphan._

"She looked right at me and had no idea and...Killian, I miss them."

She's shaky again but he can't respond, can't breathe for a moment because she's taken to call him his given name before the lad's memories had returned but this time, this time it was just the two of them and no deceit to fulfill and she had used it. She had called out for Killian, not Hook.

He was well and truly fucked for this woman.

He tested the waters and brought his arm infinitesimally closer around her, so he could lean down and rest his chin on her head if he moved. "We'll get back love, I promise you. You'll see your parents and your boy again."

The top of her head brushed his throat with her movement and he had to swallow roughly, his fingers tensing before releasing.

"Do you…" She paused, seeming to gather herself. "...It doesn't change anything, but just for tonight would you…"

Hook catches her drift and wants to laugh because it changes everything, is everything that Emma wants him to hold her, trusts him enough to keep her safe while she sleeps in this foreign land. But he knows prodding will send her running so he simply gives into the urge to lean his chest ever-so-slightly towards her hair and agrees. "Of course love. Get some rest."

It's only when he feels slumber take her that he dares to press a gentle kiss to her hair, to let his palm curl around her shoulder and count her heartbeats into the dreamworld.

In the middle of the Enchanted Forest, on the hard ground and without coat or cushion to protect him from the rock digging into his side or the twig against his boot, Killian falls deeper asleep than he has in two centuries.

(He's just as thankful to wake up before her and have time to deal with his erection before she roused and found another reason to throw her bloody walls up again.)

His knee is aching from the unforgiving wood of the floor and the way she leans in on his side is making his shoulder strain, her weight displaced against him.

Dave himself is going to have to physically pry him away if he wants him to move, though.

Killian had barely let her go since her father placed his shivering, blue-lipped daughter into his hands. He carried her to the back of the prince's vessel, cradling her to his chest with one hand and using the hook to disrobe his coat and wrap her into it before swinging her into his arms and stumbling into the back of the contraption. The whole thing would have been more graceful, perhaps, if he placed his cargo down before going through the doorway but alas, he couldn't have born it.

That, and she was still bloody freezing.

Her skin was unnaturally pale, little bits of snow and ice clinging to her hair when she finally climbed out of that cave. Her hand at his nape had nearly scolded him but he was simply too relieved to have her safe, in his arms.

Or, he supposed, grimly, safer.

Wrapped in his coat, he pressed the cold tip of her nose into the open flesh of his chest, placing one hand there and taking the other in his, warming her fingers gently and kneading the flesh.

Hook had been alive long enough to see hypothermia take a number of limbs from sailors and he knew that fingers and toes were the first to go.

He breathed hot air onto the tips of her nearly gray digits and she had squirmed slightly, whining in discomfort which made the hot press behind his eyes a little more bearable.

If she was uncomfortable, she still had feeling. If she had feeling, she still had a shot.

He's blow his own damned hand off if she lost but a sliver of her pinky toe.

"I know Swan," He murmured, shifting to bring her other hand up, to bring him closer to his heat and his life. "Bear with it, please. It'll help."

She nodded sluggishly against him but was otherwise fairly still.

And that had scared the bloody fuck out of him. No shivering meant parts of her body had already shut down. The glassiness of her eyes, the way she had to blink to answer anything…

No. She would be fine. Emma was strong. Her father was here. The heat was on in the blasted car. She would be home soon. Home with every linen he could damn well find in Storybrooke and gallons of that hot chocolate concoction. She'd be fine..

"Hook you need to," It was the first thing the prince had said since entering the truck, too intent on driving as safely and quickly as possible in the dark.

"Keep her awake, I know," He had cut him off, meeting his eyes in the mirror and nodding.

"'M awake." Emma had slurred, nuzzling closer to his throat. "You're making my fingers 'urt."

Killian had to choke back a hysterical laugh at the faint recrimination in her unfocused glare, choosing instead to tuck her under his chin and look at the window, timing whether he should remove her boots and work on her toes or if they would arrive at her parents abode in time…

His eyes accustomed to long nights, he quickly spotted the street sign meaning that they would arrive any second now, especially with how Dave was driving…

They had pulled up shortly, and David had hopped out of the car and opened the back door, clearly indicating that he was going to take his daughter inside.

His fingers curled deeper around her and his mind flashed furiously. He didn't give a damn. He'd almost lost her. He wasn't letting her-

"Hook-" Dave warned

"No," Emma shook her head, blinking blearily at him and wrapping an alarmingly weak grip into the front of his shirt. "Don' go."

Killian had glared the prince into submission, who bowed to his daughter's request and moved out of the way so he could carry her into the loft.

Her son was waiting at the door, blankets procured and Emma deposited in a chair, covered with every warm thing he could find before Henry made cocoa. He left her side but once, sensing the power meant the odd little heaters used at Granny's would be back up and bringing it to her side.

The gratitude in her eyes at the gesture had made his brief departure worth it.

And now? He'd carefully observed her while running his hand up and down her shoulder in little circles, the way she started shivering again and her teeth clacking. While it was a good sign, his very soul ached to see her in pain. So he leaned her closer to him, letting her dead weight fall into his side as she cuddled into him, body trembling against his.

The prince had departed briefly to deal with his wife and the ice woman, but Killian remained, crouching even closer and ignoring whatever talk was coming from the kitchen.

Her feet were tucked under her, under the pile of blankets, and he gently brought them across his lap, making her grumble at the movement before she sighed in pleasure when he slid off her boots and began working heat and sensation into the sole of her foot, her pinky toe, her arch.

His thigh trembled at the additional weight in his lap but he refused to buckle. Not when she'd almost been gone. Torn away. Like Liam, like his mother, like Milah…

"You're good at that," Emma mumbled into the crook of his neck, letting her head fall there.

Killian chuckled, tempted to pull her the last remaining inches into his lap fully and simply take the chair for himself, but this was her parent's home and he doubted the prince would approve. "Glad to be of service, Swan."

"Thank you for," She shrugged her shoulders, burrowing impossibly deeper into him. "Y'know."

He felt his eyes soften, hysteria building slightly in his nose again, causing them to flare and for him to swallow hard before shifting even closer so he could rest the curve of his jaw on her cheek. "Aye, love. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

Her hand came up to the back of his neck, almost cradling him to her when voice from the kitchen roused him.

"Emma, you're still shivering. I think...maybe a shower would do you some good?" It was her mother, her eyes shining with unshed worry and voice gentle.

He could feel the prince's much less tender scowl behind her but choose to ignore it, simply leaning back enough to catch Emma's much-more-alert, if bloody exhausted, gaze. "Swan, I think your mother is right. You'll have to start the water off warm, but it will certainly help with any lingering chill."

Hey eyes went wide and her fingers tensed against him, an unspoken plea in the sudden tightness of her body. "You…"

Killian smiled softly down at her, cupping her cheek to make sure she met his gaze, his heart melting when she leaned into it. "I will remain by your side as long as you want me Swan."

"Hey-"

"David, shush." Snow's voice cut off her husband's authoritatively and Hook was once again reminded that this woman had been a queen once. "Killian, why don't you help Emma up the stairs and I'll help her shower. You can wait in her bedroom, if you like?"

Both he and Dave seemed flabbergasted at his wife's use of his given name but Emma had nodded vigorously against him and it seemed, that was that. Fighting against his sore muscles, tense from one position for so long, Hook lifted Emma into his arms, blankets and all and carried her up the stairs of the loft, barely catching the quick exchange between Snow and her husband.

"Snow he's.."

"You know what David, I don't really care if he was the Dark One himself. He's who our daughter wants and she nearly froze to death today. He clearly cares about her and she's an adult. Eventually, he's going to be in her bed, under our noses or not so grow up."

She made loud steps up the staircase for someone so petite, but smiled when she reached where Hook was holding Emma outside the bathroom door.

Suddenly wary, his gaze darted between Emma and her smaller mother. "Can you…"

"I'm much stronger than I look," The woman said firmly the same time Emma began protesting in his arms.

Meeting her eyes and nodding, he carefully deposited her shaky daughter onto the floor.

"I told you I could walk," Swan grumbled, moments before her mother caught her by the waist before she tipped over.

Raising a single regal eyebrow, her mother simply leveled her gaze on her daughter. "Sure. Now, how about we get you in the shower. Hook, her bedroom is second to the left."

Nodding numbly to Snow before the bathroom door shut on his face, he shuffled down the hallway and paused outside the doorway.

Even with her mother's invitation, Killian hesitated. He had never been in Emma's room before and entering it without her explicit invitation, when she was weak and vulnerable…

He sighed, leaning back and crossing his legs as he sat down and waited outside the door, trying not to think of Swan with water pooling down her naked body, across her sternum and between her breasts, falling down her abdomen…

He entertained himself by tying intricate knots in his head until he heard a muffled shout from the bathroom, nearly jumping out of his bloody skin and ready to rent the door open, flay the enemy with his hook who dared-

"Emma, slow down. We need to start with warm water. There you go…. I know, I know it's not comfortable sweetheart but it'll help, I promise." Snow's voice drifted to him and he resettled, sighing.

Hot water on cold flesh was indeed an egregious thing, but her lady mother was right. It would bring her temperature up.

Hours seemed to pass before the door opened and Snow shuffled out, Emma trussed up in a multitude of towels before him in the hallway.

He couldn't even take note of the wet state of her calves, too bloody excited about the renewed redness of her cheeks, the pink of her lips.

Gods, he could kiss her mother right now. Swan looked...well, she looked a lot more like Swan. If, a touch tired.

"She told you where the room was," Emma murmured, half-leaning against her mother and eying him appraisingly from his spot on the floor. "You didn't have to wait outside."

Killian merely shrugged and averted his eyes, shuffling out the way so mother and daughter could enter the room and presumably dress her. He felt his own pulse calm as her bedroom door snapped shut behind him. He knew Emma wanted him to stay, but what should he do? Wait below in the loft with an angry prince? Try his luck with Henry?

He settled on simply remaining outside her door, prepared to spend a night propped against the wall and leaning in to detect her heartbeat when the door swung back open, her mother alone appearing with an exasperated smile on her face so Swan-like it made his bones clench.

"She's asking for you." She said, half-shutting the door behind her and whispering. "I know David can be a grouch, but I'll take care of that. Just go...go make my daughter happy, Hook."

There was an intonation in her words that made him pause, understanding the connotation. The open stare of her eye entrusting him, promising vengeance if he mucked it up.

It was so terrifying he idly wondered how the Queen had ever dreamed of besting this woman. Swallowing and nodding, he cleared his throat.

"Aye, milady."

With a long sigh and a short grumble, Snow made her way back downstairs, presumably to deal with said husband.

Killian waited a minute. For Snow to change her mind. For David to hang him. For Henry to berate him. For Emma to announce that she was done with him, thank you very much. Nothing came.

He scrambled to his feet so fast they caught, causing him to more fall into her bedroom then knock.

Emma didn't appear to mind, bundled below a mountain of blankets on her bed.

Her bed.

Without conscious thought, he took in her abode. The plain, off-white walls, the closer filled with leather above and leather below, the solitary picture of Henry sitting by the well-loved dresser.

For all that this was her territory, he'd be hard-placed to see her here. It made his throat clench hard.

"Well are you going to stare all day or get in here? I'm still cold you know." At least, that's what he thought she said, her words muffled under the mound of linens and quilts.

Killian shuffled his feet, his hand scratching behind his ear. Surely she couldn't mean…"Aye, Swan. Just throw me a pillow and I'll be right as rain by your bedside."

The floor looked great. He could spy a patch of wood that was sure to be comfy. His knees didn't even hurt that much any more.

Her long sigh made the whole damn army of blankets rise and fall and he couldn't hold back his grin. "Seriously, Hook. Are you going to make me say it?"

He blinked. Because while he had held Emma once (enough to make a man mad for it again) he had also endured the push-pull that came with Emma Swan. That kiss at Granny's revealed her interest, but since then she couldn't seem to make up her mind on how okay she was with their...courtship. One moment, he's kissing her. The next, she was studiously avoiding him and using Leroy of all people as a distraction. She detested Leroy.

So he simply nodded, approaching where he suspected her form to be and placing a gentle hand on the pile. "Swan, I will do anything you ask, you know this. But you're going to have to tell me, love. I don't want to...I don't want to do anything untowards, especially with you in this state."

There was a long pause, long enough for Killian to pull back and prepare himself for a night outside her door when he heard a faint grumbling, followed by the lifting of the hoard of blankets until a blonde head appeared, bleary, irritated green eyes following him as she somehow found an opening for him.

"Look just….just get in the goddamn bed, Killian. Mary Margaret's got David. Henry's half in love with you and I'm...I'm still cold. So just...come on."

Her lower lip juts in what is most definitely a pout and just when he thinks he can't be more endeared to the woman, he is. He walks over, discarded his hook but not his brace on the nightstand before slipping under the covers and pressing against her back, unable to contain his smile as he presses it against her neck.

Gods, he loves her.

"Just...Just so you know I'm like two seconds away from passing out so this is just-"

"Go to sleep Swan," He can't help but laugh, pressing himself a little tighter against her when he feels her faint shiver. "Just go to sleep. Your father will be by in the morning to yell at me."

She slides back against him until they're nearly pressed toe-to-head together, his body rattling for hers and it is a strangely simple thing to pass it down, to enjoy how alive and warmed she feels in his arms.

"Isn't the leather un...uncom'table?" She breaks the silence, words slurred with exhaustion and he can't hold back his chuckles now, breathing them into her skin before simply looping his good arm around her waist loosely and breathing in the smell of her clean hair.

"Darling, you're making up words now. Sleep."

And she does.

He doesn't, to be honest. To engrossed with how her heart beats strong, how her stomach feels warm through her shirt, how he can hear her breathing and just revels in all of these things.

In the life that he once feared was lost.

So when Dave does indeed come knocking at the door he merely slides out from under her and hushes him, taking the glare without a care in the world.

Emma Swan is alive.

* * *

He's been fighting sleep ever since he came to Camelot, begging for a few more hours beside Swan' side.

He knows it helps her. She hasn't said, but her eyes are clear of darkness when she's near him or the lad and he's all too happy to help her through this.

(Needs to help her through this, needs to know she is still her, still with him.)

She'd nearly taken his head off with a show of magic before but here in the middle or pink roses with the wind putting pink in her cheeks and tangling her hair, it seems he had succeeded.

There is no shadow in her form when she leans over him, just the sweetness of her voice as she bites his ear, "Here, Killian."

His blood shoots south even as he gauges her face, makes sure it's Emma that wants this and not whatever weighs on her shoulder. But her eyes are clear of everything but lust, the white of her dress standing stark against the cloudless blue sky, against the green of the forest.

Damnation, he loves this woman.

So he rolls on his back, plucking a pink rose to stick behind her ear as she giggles, fingers diligent in unlacing his pants.

"Is that a yes, Captain?"She's still laughing and he has to lean up to kiss her.

"If I ever refuse you Swan, assume my heart has been taken hostage again." He says against her own lips, forcing another giggle from her mouth.

Gods, he loves her like this. Free and happy and completely open to him. If he could keep her like this…

But he can, just by keeping her here, in these silly flowers with roses in her cheeks.

"As you wish, my love."

Emma just smiles, rearing above him and reaching under the lovely white dress to..to…

She throws her undergarments into the grass and all thought leaves his brain.

"To what?" Her smile is predatory now, a sheen of familiarity in the way she rolls above him, her hips against his in a way that encourages his faint motions up to hers.

"Emma…" He begs until she finally rolls over him, taking him straight to the hilt in a movement that makes him gasp and pulls air from his lungs until his arms are tight around her waist. "Emma!"

"Yes, me." She smirks, building her pace without forgiveness. She drops on his cock, fast, wet slides that have him keening in the open valley, desperate for her touch as he tries to tug her down, angle her differently, without much success.

This is Emma's fucking and she's doing it her way.

"Swan!" He manages to warn moments before his impending demise, thrusting into her thrice more times before coming undone and spilling himself in her.

(He's never felt her this bare before. In her realm, they always use sheaths. This is a new, entirely welcome sensation of her wet sex on his cock.)

Welcome, at least, until she probes away from his fingers, intent on making her follow him. "Swan?"

She shakes her head, pulling her dress down even as he dries between her thighs, the shadows back in her eyes. "Don't worry about it."

"Emma," He feels himself beg, half pride and half worry for her when she rolls fully off him, a few pink petals still stuck to her hair.

"It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal." He persists, even as he has to put his cock away, tightening the draws on his pants and hopping after her. "Emma you need-"

" _Nothing,_ " She hisses, turning to him in a clearly inhuman stretch of her neck before she spooks their horse, causing it to run away before she wraps her own arms around herself. "Nothing, I'm fine."

He's gentle, slow as he puts his arms over hers, kissing her temple once, twice before the darkness recedes and there's only Emma, nearly weak at the knees in relief as he scoops her up.

"I'm here, my darling. Right here."

"Killian, you can't carry me all the way back." But he can hear the darkness tinging her vowels, creeping on her throat.

So he simply steals his arms and kisses her temple. "Watch me, my love."

* * *

He doesn't understand it at first, his inability to sleep. He's faced insomnia in many lifetimes before and simply chalks it up to Emma being possessed as to why he can't sleep.

But then he finds out the truth and his first wish, before Nimue takes him, before the darkness falls, is to dream of her: open as she used to be on his ship.

The darkness obliges him, and he dreams while awake.

* * *

The dead don't sleep.

Emma Swan, however, is not dead. No matter how she might protest.

"This is the first time you've slept since you rescued me," He argues on the rooftop, his undead belly filled with false bile.

"I'll sleep for weeks when Hades is defeated, I promise." It's half a lie. Part of her still doesn't believe she can make this happen.

And as much as he loves her, most of him doesn't either.

But he lets her go when the lights shine, lets her use her magic and prays to gods he never believed in that she can sleep without him. That she finds peace if she has to leave him.

(She has to and she cries and that's worse than anything Hades threw at him. Worse than torture, worse than pain. Her tears and knowing he's the cause of them, knowing he can do nothing but kiss her goodbye and beg her to be happy.

(He imagines holding her hand in that cot under his ship again, that they're just leaving Neverland as she slips his grasp. Just one night holding her.)

The dead don't dream, but Zeus smiles and he still has to pinch himself when he spots her again.

* * *

"Move in with me."

He's fairly certain she's killed him, the way his pulse races at those words. Never in a million lifetimes would he have thought this story would end in her saying…

"What?" It's bumbling but he needs to be sure. Needs to make sure he knows what she's offering.

She offers some dribble about a bus he doesn't buy before looking away, gathering herself as her fingers continue to play with the hair on his nape. "I mean...I have a closet full of red jackets. I feel like I could make some space for some black leather."

Her closet. It's an old joke between them and his whole body soars to hear it, feels the tugging on his lips before he's even ushered his, "Well when you put it like that then I would love to move in with you."

Her smile turns into a kiss and he is hopeless, bound by her to sleep next to the snoring pregnant woman one last night.

* * *

One last night away from her. He's nearly can't sleep the first night in her bed, in their bed, bloody hell. His mind to full of golden shears and her fated death and _Emma, Emma, Emma._

He respects her decision, he truly does, but he can't swallow the idea that she's just going to...die. She's one of the most powerful persons he's ever met and she's simply...lying down and waiting? Not on his watch.

Still, there's an empty weight in his pocket that feels like the shears he lied about and no matter how he turns, it persists.

"Killian," Emma murmurs half-asleep and he immediately regrets his movements, silently begging her back to much-needed slumber. "What's a matter?"

He kisses her brow, her forehead, her eyelashes, slowly rocking his form in hopes she'll fall back. "Nothing my love, just go back to dreamland."

She whispers against him but the dark under her eyes tells a different story, and soon she's painting her dreams back along his chest. It's a beautiful portraiture, one he intends to keep well even if she hates him for that.

"Love you," She slurs against his neck."

"Aye," He wipes his face to keep the tears from reaching her. "You as well, Swan."

He'll damn the town to protect her, to protect this: Swan asleep in his arms, in a shared bed with an egregious amount of linens on it, with a small smile on her face as she sleeps curled into his side.

He'll damn a million towns for this

* * *

They're engaged.

After being tossed about realms and newly returned, Killian can barely believe it.

They're engaged.

He's marrying Emma Swan.

Emma Swan. She of a thousand walls and not-quite lies.

He's not willing to risk a single thing, not even a little superstition.

When he hears the little girl intonation her tone, he almost recants, but his gentle kiss and excited eyes seem enough to prove to her that he is as excited for this as she is.

He's not sleeping, too filled with adrenaline and fury and joy about the day to come when the lad calls.

His entire body weighs down with dread.

"Lad, out with it."

"It's...it's mom. I think she's having a nightmare."

He curses himself silver in every language he knows because of course. He and Emma haven't spent a night apart by choice in months and of course it concerned her. Of course he left her to the demons in her own head.

Some husband.

He throws his pants back on with haste, nearly running to their apartment, sidelining Henry to get to their bed where Emma is thrashing, whining sadly into her pillow.

 _Oh darling, I'm here._

Without thinking, he leans down to press a gentle kiss to her lips before rousing her.

 _Always here._

He wakes in a very strange world.


	3. Chapter 3

Before Henry Mills was Henry Mills, he was nothing but a baby without a name, a family, or a home.

He was one of thousands of those cast-aside children: one of 50 in his particular orphanage in Boston. He laid in a dry, but cheap sheet with a usable, but used blanket to swaddle him. His crib was unmarked and sturdy: but unremarkable. Another would use it after he outgrew it and another after that.

All nameless, numbers of children.

Henry Mills remembers none of this, of course. He does not recall the repetitious, industrial sort of care the nurses gave him: keeping him fed and well but lacking affection, or anything close to love. He does not recall the orphanage or the crib or the lonely, dank prison cell he was born in.

But sometimes, some part of him aches with loneliness. With loss. Sometimes, he dreams of the sterile nursery and vacant faces he can't possibly imagine. He dreams of being discarded and it prickles at his side like a burr, the not-quite-memory of being unloved.

It is that feeling: more than his belief in magic, more than the curse, more than his understanding that something was off about Regina, that led him to hunt down Emma Swan.

After all, if he was as bright and obedient and kind-hearted as his teachers' said, surely if he found her she would love him. Surely, she would see the error of her ways and that driving feeling of being unwanted would go away. If he could earn the love back that he had lost ten years ago.

It is one of the known but unspoken of facts in his family. Regina knows it. Knows that if she had known how to love him as a mother should when he was younger, he would never have gone after Emma. Emma knows it, knows that despite Henry's acceptance and forgiveness: that she gave her son the same wound she carries even in adulthood.

But Henry Mills is not a cruel child, and so on nights he dreams of stale air and clinical eyes, he simply wakes and takes the Author's pen in his hand, hand paging through pictures of his book.

Because if Regina had known how to love him, he would have never found Emma. If Emma had never been found, the curse would never have been lifted. If the curse had never been lifted, he would never had known his grandfather. His father. Hook. No one is town would ever have been happy. He would never become the Author. Storybrooke would never have known the magic of Elsa's ice skating rink or Emma lighting the bay around Christmas time with floating little fairy lights.

And so on nights when Henry dreams of sleeping as a nameless, faceless orphan: he holds his pen and remembers the truest words he has ever been told:

 _All magic comes at a price._

* * *

When Henry Mills is five, he has a room most children his age would die for but no other children to occupy it. He has a wall of his favourite books in beautiful covers. A television nearly as large as himself. Two chests filled with toys and stuffed animals including a well-loved, spit-upon, and chewed up plushy swan animal he named Herbert. (The irony would be appreciated much later in his life.) His bed is shaped like a race-car and is almost overwhelmingly large for his tiny legs. The room is spacious and bright and safe. His comforter soft and warm.

And he is so very, terribly lonely.

"But mommy," He wipes the tears from his eyes as Regina kneels before him, a sternness in her eyes warning the tears away. "Why can't I have any friends over? I promise I'll share my racecars. I promise I'll clean up after. You're always at work and I don't have anyone to play with. Please mommy!"

He bites his lip and tugs on the stiff black fabric of his mother's skirt. He hates it when she leaves. Hates the emptiness of his big boy room with no one else in it.

Regina pats his head twice and pulls away, standing. "Sydney will watch you while I'm gone. You can show him your racecars."

Oh, he hates that man. Sydney with his stupid face and inability to make ever the closest thing to an acceptable vrooming noise. He wipes at his eyes again. "But mommy-"

Regina steps away, shaking her head. "I'll be back in a few hours. Be good for Sydney."

Henry bites his lip one more time and lets his fingers uncurl from the tough, itchy fabric of his mother's skirt.

He lets go.

* * *

When Henry Mills is ten, he is too excited to go to sleep, bouncing on his beautiful blue sheets and trying to keep the noise down because Regina is already furious with him for running off to Boston and he's already had the Playstation removed from his room as punishment. (He'd like to keep the Gameboy, which won't happen if he wakes her up.)

But he doesn't particularly care. He doesn't care about Sheriff Graham's lecture about how they had been looking for him all day. Doesn't care about Regina taking his toys away. Doesn't care that he can't sleep.

He found her. He found Emma Swan and she was the prettiest person he had ever seen in real life. And she had an awesome kick-butt job and isn't he so lucky: to have a mother like that? Wasn't that what everyone wanted their mother to be like?

(Not that he would have loved her any less if she was a fat accountant, but it was nice to think that his mother was clever and pretty and just like all the superheroes in his comic books.)

And more than that, she had followed him. She had believed him. Brought him back to Storybrooke. (Had tried to leave yesterday but Henry could forgive her. Adults always had such trouble seeing the truth right under their noses.) And stayed. She was staying. Had faced the Evil Queen without fear and announced that she was staying.

Henry was grinning, hugging his giant blue pillow to his body as he stared out the window.

The silent Storybrooke clock chimed for the first time in his life and Henry laughed, staring at the stars and imagined fighting dragons with Emma. Catching bad guys. Going for ice cream.

He stayed awake the whole night, staring at the stars and dreaming:

Of finally being loved.

* * *

David is nice. He is everything one would want in a...grandfatherish sort of way.

Okay, way closer to a father but that's just weird.

Anyways, David is great. He's Prince Charming. He is helping the town establish order. He has a big, booming voice and sound logic and always, always knows what to say. He takes Henry for ice cream or to Granny's, or gives him money for Happy's arcade if he's too busy. He always, always makes breakfast. (And it's awesome.)If he's not too busy saving the town, he'll even teach him how to use a wooden sword Marco made him. He encourages school but doesn't push.

So all and all, David is great. Really.

But sometimes…

David makes awesome breakfast but always forgets to put something in his lunch. Henry either misses his pear or his pudding or once (to his horror) his sandwich. And he's never around to check his homework (or really, any good at it, to both their embarrassment when David can't help him with his spelling, mumbling something about farms and wars and never really having time to learn.) He's too...well, lax after a few days. And Henry knows he's supposed to want that, but part of him craves Regina's high brow and Emma's stern frown that encouraged him to do better, to be better.

Like they knew he could be. Would be.

Emma couldn't cook worth a damn, but she made the best hot cocoa. And Regina was well...Evil, but she used to sing him to sleep when he had a nightmare, made him soup from scratch when he was sick, came to all his school plays…

(It's easy, in the long hours of the night in Emma's vacant bed, to forget that he should hate her. Forget that she caused all this. Instead, he misses the kind touch of her hand on his hair or the perfect slices of tomatoes on his plate.)

And so whenever he follows David back to the loft, the pictures and the decor and the baking implements screaming of the woman who were no longer there: he smiled and thanked him and went to bed.

Curling up in Emma's left behind bed with tears in his eyes, unsure of which mother he was crying for.

* * *

In his entire life, Henry spent a single night with his father.

It was the worst.

Not because Neal isn't great, because he is. Because he's so clearly interested in Henry the way he always wanted his parents to be. He's doting and tells funny jokes and pays for stupid toys in NYC and teaches him how to fence.

He's cool enough to break into doors and sneak him candy and let him stay up past his bedtime, telling him roguish stories about being a Robin-hood esque thief. (Years later and after knowing Robin Hood, the kind woodsman who taught him to pitch a tent but chastised him for mouthing off to Regina, that comparison would make him laugh.)

Neal is good at video games. He has a nice, NYC job. A pretty, NYC girlfriend. He is everything Henry should want in a father, and somehow Henry loves him the minute he sees him. Loves him the way he loved Emma, so innately and intrinsically that he wasn't sure who he was before he loved them.

But Neal left Emma.

Henry's not stupid. He knows to play dumb sometimes for the adults in the town (who fall into fits whenever children know more than they ought to). But he remembers Sydney's article about how Emma gave birth in prison. He remembers Emma telling him that his dad broke her heart, that he was a bad guy.

More than any of that, though, is the look Neal sometimes gives Emma when she's in the room with him and he thinks her distracted. It's the same look Regina wore when he caught her trying to strangle David. The one Dr Hopper had when he admitted that he had lied about Henry's therapy. The one Pongo has on his dark-eyed face when Henry caught him popping on MM's kitchen tiles.

Henry Mills is old enough to recognize when someone's guilty, and smart enough to figure out why.

His dad left his mom.

And he doesn't get it. He knows Neal loves him. Saw it in the way he nearly cried the moment he saw him. Feels it in the firm brush through his hair and the way he spends hours on Mario Cart with him. But Emma?

Emma is awesome. Sure she's a little prickly sometimes: but she's fierce and loyal and saves people for crying out loud.

How could someone not love Emma?

And it scares him, scares him to think that his dad can claim to love him but not his mother because she's a part of him too.

 _How can someone only love half a person?_

But Henry loves him and wants to know him (and it still pissed at Emma for lying to him) so when Neal invites him to spend the night, he jumps at the chance.

(Plus, he knows that Emma is much cooler than Tamara, and he's sure he can convince his dad to see it too. And once Neal does, he and Emma can get back together and Henry can have what he has always, always wanted.)

So when the time comes for Emma to drop him off at Neal's rented room at Granny's, he jumps out of the bug with a skip in his step and his backpack thrown over his shoulder, plan concocted in his head.

"Hey kid, how does pizza sound for dinner?" Neal smiles, the bright look on his face faltering slightly as he watches Emma drive away.

Henry has to bite his lip to keep the grin of his face. This is going to be a piece of cake. "Extra cheese?"

His dad laughs, ruffling his hair. "Sure kid."

Happy delivers the pizza (the great mystery of who was running Storybrooke's pizza chain solved) and Neal brings out the old Playstation and connects it to Granny's ancient TV after a fair amount of effort.

("Maybe it goes in the red one?" Henry offers, eyeing the end of the chord and the colour-coded openings below the monitor with a critical eye.

"It goes in the auxiliary. How does this TV not have an auxiliary? They've had them since like the 90s...stupid fucking curse-Henry, don't tell your mom I just said that word in front of you. Maybe if I just…")

Several chords, hotwiring attempts, and a few blown fuses, Henry is devastating Neal at MarioCart.

It's when he hits him the third time with a green shell, has consumed his third piece of pizza, that he slyly glances at Neal, ready to shove more crust in his mouth as cover. "So...what ever happened to you and mom anyways?"

Neal promptly chokes on his own slice of pizza, inhaling a large sip of soda to force the chunk of bread down. He beats his own chest, eyes watering as he finally turns to Henry, red-faced. "W-Where did that come from? Has Emma been talking to you about us? Because that's not appropriate and if she is I'll-"

Henry feels his ears turn red when his father insinuates that Emma has done something wrong. His stomach turns and he has to swallow, staring at his shoes and abandoning the control to his criss-crossed knees. "No. No, she doesn't talk about any of that. She told me you were a hero before I met you…"

Neal's eyes turn away as well and his fingers grasp the crust, sending crumbs spilling onto the ground across the floor. "Right...right, I remember. So, how do I measure up to a firefighter, kid?"

Neal grins at him as he ends that statement, but it doesn't look right. It's a little crooked at the ends, his eyes not quite matching the wide opening of his lips. It's the same smile Gold gives people.

(He wonders if he inherited his mother's lie detection abilities and looks away from that smile.)

Henry shrugs instead, idly watching his red-and-blue shoelaces. "But like...Sydney posted this article, about how mom had me in prison and-"

Neal's gasp tears him away from contemplates his shoelaces to look up at the wide brown eyes of his father.

 _Oops._ Look like Henry knew more than he did.

"She-She was still in prison when she? Shit, Henry I am so-that's just...who the hell is Sydney?"

Henry frowns, taking in the slack-jawed face, the faint tremble in the his feet, the way Neal's knee keeps tapping. Keeps tearing little bits of pizza crust and tossing them to Granny's clean floor.

His stomach clenches and he feels the flush spread from his ears down his neck. "Does it really matter? How I know. I mean-you didn't-did you leave my mom all alone in prison?"

He needs him to say no. Needs Neal to smile that real smile and ruffle his hair and reassure Henry that of course not. Of course he had no role in Emma going to prison. Of course he wouldn't-

Neal won't meet his eyes. Staring at the gathering bits on the hardwood floor, staring at the limp controller in his hand. "Henry, it-it was more complicated than that."

"What do you mean?" He ignores the shrill tone in his own voice. "How is it complicated? Either you left her in prison or you didn't. What is so complicated about that?"

Henry turns fully, clutching the heavy weight of his controller between his two hands and snapping his jaw shut, fury and shame and despair rolling through him like a wave. A sudden, dark thought occurs to him and no. No. It can't be.

"Did you-" He chokes on the words, fighting hotly against his tears because he is a big kid. He doesn't have time to cry. "Did you have anything to do with her going to prison?"

The silence in the room is stifling and suddenly Henry is too hot. The tears rolling down his cheeks are too hot. His spit, swallowed down his throat, is too hot. His tummy is too hot as it churns and bucks. His face is burning and so are his ears because this is his father.

His father. The man who helped his mom go to prison.

And Emma? He hadn't even looked at her face when he asked to go over Neal's. What if he made her sad? What if she thought he was siding with his father?

Shame. That was the heat. The hot, hot waves of shame reaching even to the tingle of his toes.

"Henry-" Neal's voice was tentative, hesitant in the humid silence. "Henry it was a long time ago, and you should know that I would never leave you-"

He chucks the controller, aiming for Neal's head and missing by a mile as his tiny fingers tremble with outrage, his cheeks burning. "Like you left my mom? Who you sent to prison!? How could you? I thought...I thought you loved each other."

His father's face falls as he finishes his statement, those brown eyes wet with their own whine. "Oh Henry-Henry, I did love Emma. I did it just-"

"No," He screams, scrambling to the other side of the room when Neal reaches for him, wild-eyed. "People who love each other don't send each other to prison. They don't leave each other. You-You don't _deserve_ my mom!"

Neal looks as if he's been slapped, visibly jerking back but Henry feels a sick sense of satisfaction with the whole thing. He stares at his father with new distaste. He hates the stupid little goatee he has. Hates the NYC fashion he wears. Hates that this man has made a life after leaving Emma.

Because leaving his mom means leaving him, and Henry is sure of that.

"Henry-just because your mother and I had-"

He can't stand to listen to it anymore. Not another lie. Not another story. Not another stupid story.

Henry stands, slinging his backpack back over his shoulder and wiping the tears from his eyes furiously, taking in a heaving breath and giving his father his back. "I'm going home."

"Henry-come on, just-"

"Bye Neal."

"Henry-kid, let me walk you at least…"

"Bye Neal."

He shows up at the loft half an hour later and the moment Emma swings the door open, her arms are around him, pulling him into her belly to cry even as she nearly vibrates.

"I'm going to kill him."

"Emma, he didn't-it was my fault." Because he may hate Neal right not but he doesn't want him dead.

Probably.

"You're crying." Her voice cracks as she tugs him past the doorway, leading him up to her bed with threatening looks at his grandparents. She holds her tongue as she folds Henry into her bed, shaking out the covers and bundling him in. She's silent as she ques Netflix up, but her face is blotchy and he can see the fury flash through her eyes as she settles next to him, one arm stroking his scalp lightly. Lovingly.

"It really wasn't his fault," Henry voices as Moana drifts off in the background. "I just...I wanted him to be someone different, you know?"

He feels Emma press a kiss to the top of his head, snuggling closer to him and shutting her laptop off with her black-painted toes.

He pretends not to hear the tremble in her voice when she speaks. "I do kid, I do."

* * *

Neverland is gross.

The air is sticky and wet but you keep sweating despite that.

The Lost Boys smell. Without a parent to tell them right from wrong, it seems that Pan has let them forego bathing.

I mean, it's not like he loves taking a bath, but they smell awful and he's sure he's on his way there, what with the way his hair keeps sticking everywhere on his face.

Someone ran off with his coat and scarf hours ago and he didn't even have it in him to protest. It was that hot.

Crap, when Regina found him she was going to be pissed about the coat-

 _If Regina finds you_ , a sinister voice insisted in his head.

 _Of course she will,_ he thought back angrily. She's the Evil Queen. Pan has no idea who he's pissed off. His moms will figure out a way to rescue him.

 _If they're coming,_ the sly voice responded. _What, with the way you've been ignoring Regina, she might not bother_.

 _Shut up._ He thinks hotly. Besides, even if Regina is still made at him, Emma-

 _Emma never wanted you_ , the trees seem to whisper as night crawls upon the camp. _She gave you up, remember? Now she can go back to her old life, forget the town and-_

"Shut up!" He screams, startling the Lost Boys.

They turn to him, eyes nearly glowing in the dusk and faces menacing with paint and savage grins as they tear into the dubious cooked animal.

"Something the matter, Henry?" Pan glides up to him.

He doesn't like Pan. Doesn't like the slick smile and the insincere kindness of the other boy. He scowls. "I want to go home. It's gross here."

Pan clucks at him, snapping his fingers so a glass of clear liquid appears in his hands, tantalizingly chilled and condensed. "That's easy enough to fix. Here."

He holds the glass out in hands. The fading light reflects through it, making the liquid shine iridescently. Henry can't stop his eyes from tracking the beads of moisture sliding along the side, wetting his lips unconsciously.

He hasn't had anything to eat or drink since Greg and Tamara and he's thirstier than he can ever remember being…

But no. He's read the stories. Every one of them suggests that it's a bad idea to eat (or drink) anything the bad guy gives you.

Henry sticks his tongue out, plopping down in the dirt and crossing his arms. "I'm not taking anything you give me. It's probably poisoned or something."

Pan shrugs, snapping his long fingers together again and the glass vanishes from his open palm. "Suit yourself. But I think you'll find that you're mistaken about me Henry. This is the island for unwanted children, and here I am their Saviour, not the villain."

"I wasn't unwanted. I was abducted." He hisses, shifting so he wasn't folded on a rock.

Pan smirks, a slow unfurling thing. "And yet no one is coming to rescue you. Seems to me, they were all too happy to be rid of you."

"Shut up!" He roars again, his throat clenching tight. "You don't know what you're talking about. My moms are coming for me!"

Shrugging again, Pan glides back closer to the bonfire, joining in the wild dance of the Lost Boys as they yelp and yowl up into the night in a savage Bacchae.

Henry stays where he is on the edge of the camp, blinking against sleep for as long as he can before he drifts off curled up against a tree.

He feels like he's barely closed his eyes when there's a sharp pain in his shoulder, waking him up again.

Groggily, Henry turns his head to see a pudgy lost boy with red under one eye and yellow under the other poking him with a sharpened stick.

"Ow,' He hisses, rolling away. "What is that for?"

His large, doughy eyes glitter meanly as he gives him another hard prod with the stick and laughs. "Rise and shine princess. It's time to break camp. Pan's orders."

Grumbling, Henry gets to his feet and tries to shake the dreams away. They were strange. Out-of-focus and viscous but leaving him chilled and with a sense of dread deep in his toes. He turns his gaze around the camp, watching as the other boy pack the paint up in little jars and douse the fire. Breakfast is being distributed and everyone is moving in some kind of organized chaos-

-Pan isn't in site and the Lost Boys are occupied. He could probably slip away right now and…

Henry hasn't made it more than two steps into the jungle when the same Lost Boy who woke him up is behind him with the sharpened stick, surprisingly quiet for someone of his bulk. He grins, teeth showing as he digs the wood into Henry's retreating back.

"Get in line Princess," He breaths, hot and foul-smelling, into Henry's ear. "Or I'll put this through a leg to ensure you can't run. Pan's not here to protect you."

Hiding his shudder, Henry gets in line.

They walk through the jungle in a gaggle for the day. The Lost Boys throw skins of water between themselves, no one offering one to him. They don't stop for lunch, marching through the heat of the day and somehow not seeming to get turned around by the endless green. They sing on their way. Marches and nonsense and-

Henry is exhausted by the time they stop again at dusk, ignoring him in favour of breaking camp again. He couldn't run if he wanted at this point and they seem to know it. His feet hurt and his arms are torn up by the branches flung (unsubtly) in his direction as they moved. The back of his neck is chafed and warm as are his ears, and Henry is sure they must have burned. His hair is plastered back and even his fingers feels sweaty. His stomach stopped gurgling loudly hours ago but hunger still gnaws at him.

Too tired to protest and too proud to beg, Henry merely plops down away from the fire and quickly falls into a restless, poor sleep.

They repeat the same thing the next day, and the next, and the one after that until Henry isn't sure how long he has been here or how long he can keep going. He only knows the dryness of his mouth and that his heels have started to bleed and-

"Henry," Pan's voice is cool under the starlight as he startles awake at the sound of it.

The stars seem strangely bright, making Pan nearly glow as he crouches next to him. He tries to blink the haze from his vision away but it persists, the whole scene nearly dream like.

"Here," Pan says gently, placing a plate of food-oh god, food. It's poptarts and mac-and-cheese and a hot dog-on the ground and holds out a clear, beautiful glass of liquid to Henry. "You'll get sick if you keep this up. I told you I wanted to be your friend. See, look I'll taste it first."

Pan brings the glass to his lips and Henry stares as the twinkly, clear liquid goes past his lips with envy. He pants at the sight and when Pan hands it to him, he greedily wraps his fingers around it and tips it back.

It's the best thing he's ever had. It's cold and still like water but leaves his tongue with the sensation of bubbles and his eyes water at how good it is.

Pan smiles, tapping his shoulder lightly before standing up. "I'll leave you to it then. Get some rest. We've got a lot to discuss tomorrow."

"Wait," Henry calls after Pan's back, his vision much less blurry after drinking the water but the whole camp still retaining the dream-like quality of reality. He bites his tongue, nearly hating himself for what he is about to say. But it's been so long and no one has come yet (maybe no one ever will) and he was nothing but mean to Pan and he...and he…."Thank you."

He can make out Pan's nod in the darkness. "Of course. Like I said, get some rest. Much to be discussed tomorrow."

Henry devours the food and when he goes to sleep that night-

It's the first night he hears the Lost Boys crying in his dreams.

(Years later, he learns the truth sitting on the kitchen table in Emma's house with her boyfriend who he doesn't quite mind most days. He doesn't remember how Neverland comes up, Henry never liked recalling his time there, but Hook isn't surprised when he describes the marching and the magic food and the endless days.

"A month," He speaks softly, the way he does when Emma gets angry or to the stray cat they've fed a few times. "It took all of one month for us to depart and come back with you. Time is funny in Neverland. Pan could alter the days as he pleased. He shortened them significantly, I assumed, to deter our little party from moving long hours through the jungle."

Killian chuckles then, tapping his finger on the tumbler in his hand. "Clearly, he hadn't anticipated the forces of your mothers, say nothing of your grandparents. The bloody imp could have made it night all the time and cast us in a monsoon and they would've insisted we had a few more miles in us."

He tries to catch Henry's eye then but he stares resolutely at the table, fingers wrapped around his own mug.

"I never considered that he might have altered time to affect you as well….You heard them, then, before you left, didn't you m'boy?"

It's a stupid nickname Henry has increasingly impressed upon being too old for, but right now it warms Henry far better than the cocoa cooling in his hand as he nods into the cup.

Hook sighs, a long, low sound and shuffles around in the chair, tipping back the rest of the rum. "I'm sorry you went through that Henry. And….I'm sorry for the role I played in helping the cretins who kidnapped you in the bloody first place."

Henry jolts at that, finally releasing his white-knuckled grip on his mug to look over to his.. Mom's boyfriend. He hadn't ever thought about that: how Killian and Neal and Tamara were sort-of-allies way back when. He had been more confused that the evil pirate who tried to kill his equally evil grandpa was suddenly considered one of the good guys. And then he was his father's friend and then-

He was going to need so much therapy one day.

But Hook has his kicked puppy look again and Henry shrugs, gulping his own drink down. "Eh, it was a long time ago."

There's an awkward silence that follows and Killian gets up from the table, crossing by him to put his glass in the sink when he pauses, clasping a warm, heavy hand on Henry's shoulder. "Perhaps, but you should know...then and now, the people who love you are a force to be reckoned with. I doubt there is any force in all the realms that would prevent your mother from finding you, always. You know that, right Henry?"

He keeps his gaze back in the cup when he feels wetness prickling at his eyes. Stupid pirate and his verbose declarations of stupid things. Henry nods, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "You forgot grandpa and grandma. Grandpa would be pissed at you."

Killian let out a bark of laughter at that, squeezing his shoulder lightly. "Right you are, lad. You've got a whole slew of people who would do whatever it took to ensure your safety and happiness."

He lets his shoulder go and walks towards the kitchen, and Henry swallows again, wanting to let it go. He should let it go. He doesn't mind the sailing or learning to gamble with Killian, but deep, emotional conversations like this aren't usual between them. Hook has left to spare them both the weirdness sure to ensue. He should just-

"A pirate, too right?" He gets out in a single breath, his nerves firing and ears feeling red.

"What was that lad?" Killian calls from the kitchen.

Just let it go, he begs himself even as his mouth opens to betray him. "In that slew of people, there's a pirate too right?"

He hears the running water turn off sharply. Soft steps crossing the tile floor.

Of all the-Henry knows Hook likes him. Or at least likes Emma enough to put up with him. Why the hell did he have to open his mouth and ask…

The mug of now cold cocoa was taken from his clenching hands by Killian's larger ones, the gleaming rings the only thing he sees until he hears the creaking of leather and suddenly he is face-to-face with Hook before the idiot's kneeling and his eyes are an absurd colour and-

"Aye Henry." He places the brace on his knee and his face is intense, voice quiet as he keeps his stare. "You've got a pirate too, always."

Henry shuts his eyes against the sudden burn in his sinuses and feels a gentle squeeze of his leg before Hook retreats, leaving him to wipe his face and save what was left of his pride.

"Hey guys I figured pizza for-guys? _What happened_? Why do you both look like that? _Henry_ -"

"It's nothing lass. Order some pepperoni for the lad and we'll be fine."

"But-"

"And double cheese mom!")

* * *

He doesn't mind Walsh, persey.

He tells dumb jokes and clearly has no actual idea how to play Gauntlet despite bragging about his skills. He talks wayyyy too much about wood and carvings and his furniture and the stuffed monkey he won for him at a fair in order to impress his mom has creepy eyes.

But he loves Emma and he is old enough to know that his mom was lonely. She loves him and is a kickass PI but at some point he realized that those retching noises she made to him when a couple passed was to hide the look of longing in her eyes.

And Walsh? Well, he can make an awesome breakfast and takes her out on real dates like someone should take his mom on: fancy restaurants and events where she has to wear dresses and he always walks her to the door back from their dates.

And well, mom's made sure he knows that he's priority. He's never woken up to find Walsh in their apartment (even though he's sure that they've, you know...ugh) Mom's never blown off a movie night with him for a date with Walsh (even when he wheedles sometimes).

So when mom comes home and asks Henry if she minds if she goes on a date and tells him that Walsh is taking her to the same restaurant they went to on their first date, he pieces together that Walsh is going to propose.

And he's alright with it.

Walsh never makes him call him dad or anything and mom's been happier these past few months than he can ever remember her being. So if he has to give up some TV time so Walsh can watch Pawn Stars, he can deal. (As long as the idiot doesn't go near his Gauntlet character. He's worked too hard to get his familiar.)

"So you're sure you don't mind staying here alone for a few hours? I should be back before eleven and I ordered pizza so don't even think of breaking into the ice cream stash while I'm gone." Emma says as she slips on a pair of heels, pulling a twenty out of her wallet.

Eleven means mom has no idea what this date means. Henry almost, almost, feels bad for the poor guy. He rolls his eyes. "I'm sure it won't kill me. I may need extra allowance this week to make up for the pain and suffering of playing video games for a few hours though."

He gets a smack in the back of his head and hisses, saving his progress and turning to her as mom slips her keys into a black clutch.

"Smartass."

He takes a look at her. Walsh should propose. Mom is pretty and smart and kickass and catches bad guys. Anyone would want to marry her.

"Have fun." He says as she turns back to him, ruffling his hair and kissing his head before she nods.

"Be good kid. I'll see you in a few." The door clicks behind her and the apartment is suddenly, startlingly quiet.

It's rare for quiet in New York City and Henry liked the noise. It helped when Emma worked long hours and couldn't be home.

It itches under her skin as he leans back against the red sofa, hesitating to turn the console back on as he lays in the darkness.

His life will change tonight, he realizes. Emma will marry Walsh and he'll want a house and maybe a kid of his own. He contemplates moving and sharing Emma a little more and it makes him swallow, fisting the cushion before relaxing.

Mom loves him. He knows that. And if Walsh makes her happy, when then Henry will be happy too.

He drifts off for a few minutes, figuring the pizza man will wake him up when he rings and simply breaths in everything.

After tonight, everything will change.

(And it does)

* * *

It's not like he doesn't like Mary Margaret and David, because he finds them to be kind and sweet. He does, truly like them.

It's just that if he hears one more thing about babies, he's going to scream.

But Killian? He's still not totally sure about Killian but learning how to sail and gamble is way, way cooler than learning about cradle crap.

So when his mom asks him who he wants to spend the day with, Henry doesn't hesitate to spit out, "Killian," before blinking.

She gives him a searching look before agreeing and they're off to the docks.

It's not like Killian has done anything that he should be leary about. But he appeared right when Walsh was gone. And he claims to know his dad but that's a weird age gap and mom said he was an asshole right up until he died and it's all so strange-

"Something on your mind, master Henry?" He asks as they make it safely out to deeper waters in the bay.

Henry shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant as he works on the knots Killian gave him for homework. "Not really."

"Ah," He says, way too smart for someone dressed like a Depeche Mode wannabee. "Best be confiding in the sea if not meself."

Henry rolls his eyes, grinning when he had it finished. "It's a bay, I'm pretty sure."

"Whatever you say lad." Killian grinned in response to his knot. He looked it over for inspection, ruffling his hair when he nodded. "Good job."

Henry doesn't know why, but his heart feels bigger when Killian lets him know he's done well. So he scoffs in response, playing with the rigging some more and hoping his cheeks aren't as red as they feel.

Like, he wouldn't care if his mom dated Killian but it's only been a few weeks since Walsh and suddenly his dad is a hero and-

It's a lot, is all.

"Hey Killian," He calls, staring out at the bright, midday sun with squinting eyes and hoping his voice doesn't crack.

"Yes lad?"

"Do you have any plans for tonight?"

Killian blinks twice, his fingers grasping the helm tighter as he studies him. "Not to my knowledge. Why? Is anything amiss because I could-"

Henry shrugs again, turning away so the weirdo can't see his face. "No, I just….mom told me she has to work late tonight and MM and David are great but...I'm kinda tired of hearing about baby stuff, you know?"

Killian chuckles in response, a quiet, settling sort of sound before gesturing for Henry to take the wheel.

It takes no prompting for Henry to nearly trip over himself to do so, which prompts more of Killian's laughter until he manages to place his hands where Killian gestures to and takes the helm.

It's nice. Steering the ship. Feeling the wind in his sweaty hair.

"Lad, I will be more than happy to have you on any night you choose." He admits, sounding far too serious for just the single night he's asking for. "But we should inform your mother."

Henry groans even as he watches Killian attempt to peck out a text with one hand, balancing the cellphone on his hip.

Henry rolls his eyes. That man is such a luddite. It takes him half a lifetime to send a bloody text.

He snatches the phone out of Killian's hands and quickly sends a, "Staying with Killian tonight, that alright?" message to his mom.

Killian pouts through the whole thing until Henry hands him back his phone and waits for the inevitable ding. Killian seems to freeze, not breathing, until he reads the text message aloud.

"Seems fine to Em-your mother. She would just like to know where we are sleeping."

Henry shrugs at the hem before he realizes that Killian is waiting for him to say where he wants to go to sleep tonight. It's a new thing to him, this level of choice when he's always been told. It makes him happy and nervous all the same. So he sighs. "Wherever."

Wherever ends up being Killian's room in Granny's when a sudden storm coasts in and they're forced to dock. Wherever ends up being the idiots bed when Killian refuses to let him sleep on the cot Granny brought in. Wherever ends up being a sense a peace and sleepiness he hasn't felt since visiting his town.

(And when he tries to run, Killian is there too. Trying to protect him. There, when he wakes up and realizes his mommy and his mom and his grandparents love him too.

He loves him a little bit for that, even as he hates him for his secrets.

And Henry Mills falls asleep that night in Regina's bedroom for him wondering about that. How love and hate seem so very, very close.)

* * *

He likes his new room at Emma's house, he does.

He likes that he gets to pick everything from scratch (I like green 22 not blue 75, alright kid we'll go with that then.) He likes that he gets to help assemble his bookshelf with David and pick all the text with MM. He likes that he gets a brand new playstation and TV and has a new kitchen to find out where the poptarts are and-

It's just a little _weird_ , sharing that space with Hook.

It's not like he dislikes him or anything, it just that he's never really had to share a mother with a guy before. (Robin doesn't count. Robin already had Roland and the one time they all went camping was fantastic but he doesn't last long enough for this-for the awkwardness of moving in and adjustment and... _yeah_.)

But Killian is there when he goes to sleep in his new room. He's there when he gets up in the morning, making pancakes and fighting with the Keurig.

("It only makes one cup at a time, Hook."

"That's bloody barbaric.")

But he's learning to like it because Emma is happy and he loves Emma (and semi-secretly might love Killian too.) But he throws away his poptarts and makes fish whenever he can and it gets old, sometimes.

And then he's in a sub and Killian is urging him to go and he just can't leave _him._ Not the man who makes Emma grin. Not the man who they went to hell and back for. Not the man who helps him with Calculus (Regina and Emma are hopeless at it).

So when he goes to bed that night, listening to make sure his mom forgives Hook for the whole Nautilus debacle, he simply pick up his pen and writes.

"...and the princess and the pirate learned about redemption…"

And yeah, he could get used to fish for breakfast. (It kept Emma happy, after all.)

* * *

Henry doesn't mean to wake up Hook, but he feels he has too. He's been entrusted as the best man and this feels likes one of his duties. Emma is shaking as she sleeps. Shaking the whole damn house with this nightmare and Henry has a feeling that being without her husband has caused it all. (They could roll eyes and get red all they wanted. They were totally married.) So he calls Killian and he comes and he kisses her like he should and then, and then-

Well, curses were created by less.

* * *

Henry Gold could only count for wanting of a soft bed for a brief time in his life.

It was the time before. The time before being adopted by Fiona, the mayor of her strange little town. He was barely five when it was done, but some part of his body still remembered, still sunk into the soft cotton like it was the last time.

He could remember, the various homes. The hardness of the orphanage cot. The false smiles of the first family who had taken him. The claustraphobic, close space in the attic where he resided given little food until his conditions landed him in Boston hospital and thus in a new home.

Fiona's.

So really, by all rights, he should be grateful.

But he had dreams. Dreams as livid as memories too. Dreams of sleeping in this manor and being loves, truly loved by a woman as black as Fiona but whose eyes shone, sparkled for him alone. Memories of this place being safe and warm and knowing that no matter how dark her heart, he was protected by the Mistress in his dreams.

There were other dreams as well. Sleeping in a bed with a kind woman with short hair, a blonde man with a charming grin and theyir beautiful, beautiful daughter beside him. Reaching out in her sleep to soothe his nightmares.

"I'm here, Henry."

His mother, of course. Emma Swan. Blonde and fierce and pretty.

But he had been told. Had been told by Fiona, by Dr. Hopper, by Nurse Ratched, that these were all merely dreams. Figments of his imagination from his desire with a life with his birthmother. For a desire for a life away from Fiona.

Because even as his body betrayed him and sunk into comfortable sheets in a large room, part of his soul rebelled because he knew, he knew despite the comforts why sleep never came easily to him.

Fiona did not love him.

Fiona was a snake in the grass.

Fiona had imprisoned his mother. Emma Swan

* * *

The man caught his eye almost instantly.

He wore an abundance of leather, eyeliner, and had a...a….hook for a hand.

He was also staring despondently outside the gates of the school as though he expected his son to walk right up and claim him.

Henry snorted, shouldering his backpack higher and making way to the circle where Fiona always picked him up after second bell. He put his headphones in, all too eager to ignore the jeers of the other children. They were of one of two minds. The first, gave him a wide birth due to the wrathful way Fiona had seen to it bullies of her son's were taken. Fathers put out of business. Mothers suddenly susceptible to scandal. Teenagers who stared at his shoes when they told him he had been summoned to see the principal again for dodging class or because someone had turned him in for vandalism.

Terrified of him. Of his adoptive status.

But Storybrooke was a small town and when he went to find Emma, when he brought her back, when he had hoped she might free them both to secret away, to live a life where they loved each other-

-Well, it was a small town.

So the other half, the half of students' whose parents had already lost everything or who threatened them with teenage rebellion without understanding the adult consequences. The half that was angry and foolish and believed they could still hurt Henry Gold without incurring Fiona Gold's wrath…

Well that half went after him for Emma Swan.

His birth mother, in the asylum. For him. Because of him. Because he had believed in fairytales and happy endings when all that existed was disappointment and adults willing to fall for children's lies because they were so broken on their own.

The i-pod (the best gift Fiona had ever conjured up for him) was a blessed relief. Play the music too loud, and he couldn't hear the jeers of Felix and his croony laughing at the son of the madwoman. Play it loud enough, and he could ignore the fear in the kids, who tripped over their own half-tied shoelaces whenever he was around.

So when Henry took note of the man, he blinked twice, looking right and left for whom he could possible be collecting before shrugging and placing the headphones in his ears.

Really, it was better this way. All curiosity ever got him was helping to incarcerate the one woman who loved him.

(And she did. It was the one thing Henry Gold had never doubted. Emma Swan loved him, mad or not, as much as the dark woman in his dreams.)

So he turned his gaze away and shuffled towards the middle of the square, just before the buses with students filing in, waiting for Fiona's click-clack to declare her presence.

Bach was a good friend to have in these times.

So imagine his surprise when, out of nowhere, he caught a bright glimmer and was forced to squint to find its source because while today was sunny, he did still live in Maine and that kind of blinding light never really found it's way to Storybrooke. So what the hell-

It was the man in strange clothes again, but this time, Henry caught his eyes. Bright, blue eyes like Daniel in class five had that all the girls swooned and gossiped over. Except Daniel never wore eyeliner. Didn't have some weird, rock-and-roll JM Barrie prosthesis. (Although he did occasionally steal his dad's leather jacket to show for school. The girls swooned at that too, but Henry just thought it showed off how scrawny his shoulder's were in compared to his dad's. Girls were stupid, sometimes.) More than any of this, however, was the way the stranger grinned when he caught Henry's eye and waved the hook even more like a maniac, desperate for attention.

Warily, Henry removed his earbuds. It could still be a trap. An older boy, playing a prank on Henry by hiring an actor. Fiona, questioning his loyalty.

"Lad, lad! T's me. It's Killian. Hello? Henry, get those devil things out of your ears and come here. I swear, your mother's right. They will make you deaf."

Henry had been totally prepared just to see what poor kid had the wannabee rockstar as a dad and go home. Had committed himself to simply observe, right until he heard 'mother'.

And now? Now he was curious, but certainly not stupid. People had assumed Fiona loved him and tried to use him as blackmail before. (He had memories of the mad hatter, Jefferson, kidnapping him until raided by the Boston SWAT team. Remembered being bound and gagged, listening to a lunatic tell him that he would get his poor daughter Grace out of this. Grace a sweet girl, tried to befriend Henry when others wouldn't.

She killed herself two weeks after her father had been arrested. Or so the rumours say. Henry had learned his lesson.

Fiona wouldn't come to aid because she loved him, but she also wouldn't abide by any insurgence against her. And Henry getting kidnapped was bound for people to pay.)

So carefully, ignoring a familiar jeer from Felix in the bus window, "Got a madman for a father as well, Henry?" He approached the gate.

He made sure he stayed out of arms reach and well within the grassy area of the school, eyeing the man up and down. "Do I know you?"

His face fell, clearly but briefly. (Fiona may be cruel but she had taught him to be perceptive, to be observant at all times) The stranger recovered, muttering strangely to himself.

"Bloody fuck. You were spared the first two times. I had hoped maybe..it doesn't matter, I suppose. I'm a...friend of your mother's. I need your help, Henry."

This leather-wearing, rough-looking man seemed like no one Fiona would abide in her company. He raised a brow. "I don't think Fiona has any friends unless you count Doctor Hopper, which most don't. So again, who are you?"

"Fiona?" The stranger pressed. "Who in the seven devils is...oh that bitch! I will-" Fury so dark raised on his features that Henry took a step back until the man seemed to notice and shook himself out of it, softening his face.

"No, no lad. I'm no friend of...Fiona's. It's Emma. I'm...I'm Emma's friend. Please I need your help. She's in danger and doesn't remember anything and-"

Henry felt his blood boiling the moment he heard her name. Of course. Felix had probably paid some method actor to come and pretend to set her free. Someone who fell into their delusion of fairytales. A tease to hurt them both more. He took an angry step forward, stowing his ipod away for safety before glaring at the man. "Look, I don't know who's paying you or what your deal is, but you leave her alone? You hear me. If not I'll-I'll tell Fiona you threatened to kidnap me and you know what happened the last time that occurred? People died. So just stay the hell away from Emma."

The strangest thing happened after he said that though. Instead of terror or fear, the man simply looked...heartbroken. His hand reached out, grasping through the gate at nothing, blue eyes wide and sad. "Henry...I would never, ever hurt her. But where is she? I can't find Emma or David or Snow and I'm so worried something has happened. Henry...it's Killian. It's Killian and I just want to know if she's alright. Please, lad. Please."

Months of torment and fury beat up in Henry's veins. Months of jeers and being forced to watch Fiona's smug grin as she tortured Emma in that place. The day the police came and Emma swearing right and left it was her idea, her illness that convinced them of a crazy idea that there was a firmly for her here. That Henry was innocent and sane and simply trying to be kind. Months of Felix's crew throwing bread at his head, asking if he was a basket case yet, like his mom.

He spit at the man, swinging a poorly-aimed first at this Killian Jones and hissed as his knuckles hit chin, "She's in the goddamn asylum, which everyone well knows. Now leave me and leave her alone or I swear to god, I'll call the police."

Killian's (or whatever his name was. Killian was almost certainly a stage name) seemed stunned, hand lightly folding over the faint bruise on his jaw as he looked wildly at Henry, mouth forming over the words 'asylum' with absolute horror in his eyes.

Before another word could be uttered though, Henry heard his phone buzz, no doubt Fiona had arrived at the spot and not found her wayward charge. Turning on his heel and ignoring the cries of the man before him, he slumped towards the middle of the yard where she was clacking her heel against the concrete impatiently.

Fiona glanced a dark eye to Henry's red knuckles, nose lifting. "Anything I need to know about?"

He could tell her, he reasoned. Fiona hated Emma enough to probably go after some method actor using her name. He could tell her he tried to take him or said crap about Fiona or…

 _"I would never, ever hurt her."_ His eyes had been so stupidly blue, so honest when he said that, begging.

Girls were stupid.

"Nothing ma'am. I'm sorry you had to wait."

Fiona looked him over again before giving a curt nod and Henry hefted up his backpack, following beside her, stewing.

So was he, apparently.

* * *

He dreamed that night, again.

He dreamed of falling asleep on a ship, the rocking of the waves soothing as he lay on a small cot, covered with the softest blankets. The cabin was lit only by a small candle, illuminating shelves of leather-bound books and charts, a well-loved desk in a corner. There were voices surrounding him, warm and welcoming.

"You're safe now Henry," The dark-haired woman said, her hand gentle as it ran through his hair, her smile relieved and nearly teary.

Emma, swiping at wetness under her own eyes as she chuckled. She was filthy and sweaty and staring at him like he hung the moon. "Get some sleep kid, I'm sure you're tired after all that adventure."

"Aye lad," The voice was lilting, oddly familiar and a dark leather coat swung in the corner of his eye. From the low light he could make out a flash of blue, a strike of silver as the man grinned. "The Captain's quarters for our little hero. You'll be safe here, m'boy."

And despite the threat of the hook and the crook of his grin, for some reason Henry was sure he was safe just then with him.

Hook, his mind swam. Hook.

* * *

"Hi mom," He said softly. Henry had spoken too loudly once and it ended up with another patient attempting to gnaw his tooth off. Emma had intervened with a chair.

And ended up in solitary for two months.

He hated this stupid place. The white walls. The way they kept her so drugged up she painted pictures of birds or fruit or whatever. The dark circles under her eyes that told him she wasn't sleeping. The baggy clothes they gave her.

Emma Swan smiled at him from across the table, a soft, tremble of a thing but there all the same. "Hey kid, how are things?"

Henry forced himself to smile wide. It was all he could give her, for now. He fished in his backpack and brought out some comics. "Good. You want to hear the latest about Batman?"

Emma nodded and Henry proceeded to fill her in on the latest chapter, the discovery and adoption of Rick Grayson. The way he ruined Alfred's master soup and-

"Her mom?"

"Yeah kid?"

"Have you…" Fiona had warned him that any attempts to set Emma back would lead to a revocation of her privileges and he really didn't want that. He wanted Emma well, so they could both break out of this place. But that dream...the sea and those people.

It had been a long time since he'd had one so vivid. The others had faded like dreams. "Did you ever know anyone by the name of Killian Jones?"

Keeping his head down, Henry watched her carefully from the corner of his eye as his mother frowned, her eyes squinting and her hand shifting as though to grasp a chain around her neck that wasn't there. Her mouth option and shut, green flashing clearly for a second-

Before she shook her head, putting her fingers to her temple as though in pain and grimacing. "Sorry Henry, that doesn't ring any bells. Can I have a raincheck? This headache is starting to kill me."

"Yeah, of course mom."

He started sprinting as soon as he was out of sight of that hospital because for a moment, for one single second he would swear-

She almost said _yes._

* * *

Killian, or whoever he was, had been visiting Emma.

His name wasn't in any of the visitor's logs, but Henry kept catching glances of dark leather and hesitant, almost pleading glances in dark corners near the asylum.

He seemed to have traded the hook in for a false hand to look less conspicuous (like the whole Depeche Mode dress code wasn't enough) and no one else seemed to have noticed his movements, so Henry was pretty sure Killian was letting him catch him. Asking permission, in some sort of weird way.

Part of him was terrified that this weirdo was visiting his ill but still very pretty mother and no one seemed to be keeping track.

But Emma was…

Well, Emma was _happier._

She didn't say anything, not outright. But her eyes were a little clearer each time he came to visit. And she started having things. Nothing to get her in trouble. A swan feather. A bunch of buttercups by her bedside. A little drawn-on tattoo of a ship on her bare arm. Little things.

So Henry wasn't going to call the cops. Yet.

Not so long as Killian was keeping her happy.

"So mom, anything new?"

Emma blinked, looking at him across the table as she absently played with the snowy feather, she regarded him carefully for a moment and Henry tensed, sending that he may have given up his hand too early. However, Emma simply shrugged and gave a secret, quiet smile. "Nothing special."

He sighed, pulling out the comics again. "Spiderman?"

"Sure kid."

After three weeks had gone by, he stopped in for his visit and froze, catching sight of the leather-clad man (Killian) sitting across from Emma.

She was smiling. That soft, sweet smile and he was humming a soft song, his palm turned up and fingers spread open so she could dance her own fingers into his flesh. He didn't grasp for her hand or reach to pull her in, simply laid his one appendage out and let her decide when to touch and when not to.

He had a surprisingly good voice and Henry wondered again if he was in a band somewhere. The song was soft and about the sea, little pieces of sea-rock laid out on the table as a clear present beside them.

Henry watched for a long while, hope furloughing in his chest. If this man, this stranger could help Emma, well-

He could probably get over the stupid jacket.

* * *

It's the feather.

That damned, stupid feather that he gave her that lands her in Solitary.

He hates him, suddenly and viciously. Hates him more than he has ever hated another person. And the moment Killian walks through the door, all innocent eyes and unknowing expression-

Henry beats his fists upon his chest.

"You did this!" He screams, hands raining on the hard flesh and he feels embarrassing tears well up in the hallway while the orderly informs Killian that Emma Swan is unable to receive visitors. "You did this!"

Killian doesn't respond, simply wrapping a protective arm around him as the orderly goes through how Emma had a relapse. How she became violent after the Mayor's last visit and thought her fairytale land was real again. How she tried to hurt Fiona and Henry is sure, _sure_ that his adoptive mother concocted the whole damn thing and he hates.

He can barely make out Killian's face through the tears, but he watches as it falls, watches as horror hits him and makes his brow sink while he processes the words.

But this is his fault. His. Emma was doing fine. She was going to get out. Everything was going to be okay before-

Before Killian and his stupid smile and dumb presents.

They were going to be a family.

"I hate you! You took her away!" Henry doesn't have the strength to beat his chest anymore, his shouts muffled into Killian's vest as he distantly registers that they've been shuffled off to a corner.

The deep, blue eyes of the man look wet and one step from tears as well as Henry registers that Killian is holding him. "I know lad, I know. I'm sorry. Henry I am so, _so_ sorry they took your mom away from you."

He scowls, trying to get the pit in his stomach to rise with fury again instead of sorrow. Henry throws him off of him, tossing Killian against a wall as he glares, wide-eyed and with tears dribbling down his chin. "How could you? I thought-I thought she was safe with you. I thought you loved her. I-how could you?"

Killian's face crumples, dark streaks of eyeliner marking his cheek in the wake of his tears and he lifts up a trembling hand towards him. "Henry-lad, I do. I swear to the gods, I do. I love your mother. I love you. And no matter what happens, I will get her back to you, Henry. I promise."

Henry smacks him across the face, the redness of his surprised face satisfying in the wake of the revelation of Emma's status. "You liar! You fucking liar! She's alone, know, don't you see? Fiona can get to her whenever and just say she's crazy if she protests and you stupid, son-of-a-gun...you did this."

His tears overwhelm him after that. Large, hacking sobs that make him stop even trying to punch the weirdo. The white walls of the hall constrict, steeling air out of his lungs as he thinks about Emma. Emma, all alone in a small room. Emma facing Fiona on her own.

 _Emma, Emma, Emma._

There's a warmth at his back and then at his front, and it takes him long minutes to realize Killian has embraces him (despite his penchant for punching the man). The limb at his back feels hard and unwieldy and Henry registers it as Killian's prosthesis even as the good hand pulls him closer, tucks him under his chin and rocks him toe-to-heel in the dark of the asylum hallway.

Killian is murmuring nonsense into his hair, his embrace firm even as Henry starts sobbing against him. Even as sobbing turns to hysterics. Turns to punches again. Killian never lets go.

"She's all alone now. All alone. All-" He can't keep it up, his sobs turning into babbling and then into nonsensical words even as Killian keeps rocking him, back and forth. Like a tide coming in and out.

The orderly approaches and he vaguely hears Killian's gruff response to back up even as he's held by the man who's doomed his mother.

"Only Fiona can see her now and she'll...she'l…" Henry tries to get out, still cradled in the warmth of this man, this stranger.

He looks up with wet eyes and is surprised to see that Killian's are as teary as his own.

"Lad," His lilting voice promises. "I know you don't remember but I promise, I _swear_ to you that I will bring your mom back to you. No matter what it takes."

And against all odds, Henry believes him. Believes those ridiculous bright eyes and the unshed tears on his lashes. Believes in the way he holds him, like his is loved and precious and-

Killian kisses his forehead. "I promise Henry, I'll get your mother back to you. No more families will be ripped apart while I'm still breathing."

He turns to the gateway of the asylum and must just miss it. The sudden rainbow of colours breaking in the wind. The sudden, breathtaking feeling of remembering.

But Henry does. He suddenly remembers the kind, dark haired woman of his dreams as Regina. He remembers Snow and David, his grandparents, and little Neal. He remembers big deal and the secret-not-so-secret of his birth. He remembers Emma. Blonde and fierce and his mother and a curse and-

Spending time on Leroy's stolen vessel and learning to gamble and tying knots for hours and the smell of sea. He remembers hope and forgiveness and the way Killian corrected his math and snuck him ice cream. Violet and her parents and-

"Hook?"


	4. Chapter 4

Killian and Henry's... _thing_...didn't wake anyone else up, but it wasn't hard to convince Emma to come with them, to believe in them, when they tag-teamed her and broke her out of the hospital.

But her magic didn't return with her belief and there was a split-second where Henry was convinced she was going to die when they confronted Fiona. Fiona had a fireball on her way to Emma and his mom couldn't conjure up anything to fight it and then Killian dove in front of her and...fuck.

Fuck, he thinks. His stupid ass plan is going to get Kilian killed and does Zeus do do-overs because he's already died once and it was-

It's his grandfather. His father's father, who saves him. All fury and magic and cursing his mother about Belle and protecting Henry and suddenly the Black Fairy is no more and the world is sliding in and out of place and they are-they are-

They are home.

* * *

"Finally asleep," Emma says before he can even ask, staggering into their bedroom and flopping on the mattress heavily, a loud whine leaving her throat as she attempts to snuggle unsuccessfully under the covers.

Killian snorts at her, drawing back the quilts and using his hand to prod her prone form slightly until she's under the blankets, her chilly skin cooling him when he wraps his arm around her, latching onto her waist and breathing in her hair. The contact soothes him in a way that is nearly indescribable.

They're home. They're safe. She's in his arms.

"He lasted longer than I expected," Killian murmurs into her ear, leaving a kiss on the curve of it as Emma shifts further back into his warmth, pressing her icy toes into his shin. "He had a trying time."

She shuffles against him again, the drag of her cotton camisole soft and reassuring against his chest. "Yeah, he told me….He told me about the whole thing buddy, so don't think I'm forgetting about the fact that you True Love Kissed my son."

He snorts into her hair, his hand pressing firm into the sensitive flesh of her belly. But despite the attempt at humour he can hear the way her words get heavy and wet at the end. Killian leans in and kisses her neck, tenderly and without heat. (The lad and his mother aren't the only ones exhausted.) He pulls her impossibly closer, searching for the words to explain what he felt when he kissed the boy's hair. (Milah's grandson. Bae's son. Swan's son. His little sailor, not so small anymore. The boy that he turned his ship around for. The boy whose rescue was the catalyst for his current engagement to his mother, for his own turn to heroism. The boy who he taught to navigate by stars. The young man he helped dress for a ball. The lad who-)

There is just so much there, that he's searching, his lips moving around words that seem inadequate to describe exactly what Henry means to him. What Henry is, in his life.

(There's a word dancing just on the tip of his tongue, but he isn't sure it's allowed. Not after his failure with Baelfire. Not after his own patricide.)

Swan seems to pick up on his silence, reading him without seeing him even as she rubs a tired hand up and down his arm. "Your son."

"Pardon?"

Emma sighs, curling her back against his chest before she turns so she can tuck her head into his shoulder and weave her arms around him, nuzzling against his neck. "He's your son too. That's why the kiss worked. I know…"

She moves again, leaning back so she can meet his gaze, thumbing his cheek, scratching across the scruff there as her eyes glow wide and luminescent in the low light. "...I know we haven't talked about what it all means, with you and me and Henry. And he's a teenager, so you know, crushing on your mom's boyfriend is totally uncool in his book."

He chuckles at that, wrapping his hand around her shoulder so he can rub his thumb and forefinger across strands of her loose hair, still slightly wet from the shower.

("Shower now."

"Swan-you've. We've literally just returned to Storybrooke love. We should meet your parents os they know you are-"

"Nope. I smell like hospital. Mental institution. Whatever. I smell like a bad can of Lysol got dumped on my head. Shower first. We have fucking cell phones. They can call for the next fifteen minutes."

"Darling, you have never once taken a fifteen minute shower."

"Half-hour. Screw it, Killian. You're on phone duty. Somebody needs to tell Regina we have Henry before she freaks the fuck out and starts blowing shit up.")

She snakes her fingers down his neck, just gently pressing down in a smoothing motion. "But he adores you. You were his go-to babysitter when he didn't know anyone and the best father figure he's ever had and just…"

Emma sniffles lightly, causing Killian to nudge her closer so she can wipe her face all over his collarbone. "He loves you okay? I know my kid, and besides: True Love's Kiss doesn't work if it's unrequited so just...god, I'm such a mess, aren't I?"

He laughs again at that because, yes she's so weary her words have started to blur and her motions are nearly drunk. But Killian loves her. Loves her for loving him. Loves her for believing that he is good enough for her son. Just, loves, loves, loves.

His chest feels near to burst as he kisses the top of her head. "I believe you Swan, I do. But why don't you get some rest, sweetling? I do believe we have nuptials to attend in the morning."

Emma literally groans against his chest, swatting lazily into his shoulder. "Fuck _no_."

Despite every attempt not to, Killian feels his body tense at the words. Perhaps he had misunderstood. Perhaps despite feeling he was good enough with her son, he was still not good enough to take on her name-

"We're all exhausted," She breathed against him. "I am not waking up in-" She glances blearily at the clock by their nightstand. "-four fucking hours for Ruby to mess with my hair. Tell my father we're delaying the wedding. Granny's catering so she won't care and if Moe gives one inch of grief I'll lock him up for abducting his daughter. I just want to sleep in all day and not leave this bed except for food."

He feels his body sag in relief as her words register, and he can't help but think his (future) wife is right. There's no point to a ceremony where they're half-dead to the world. Finally untangling his hand from her hair, he reaches to snag his phone, bringing it up to Emma so she could type out the message. (She is so much faster, after all)

"By food, do you mean pancakes?" Killian can't help but ask, biting on his lip as he sees her roll her eyes.

Gods, it's been only a day in this realm but it feels like he's gone weeks, months without her. If he wasn't sure they'd both fall asleep if he tried to-

"That too." She assures him, handing him back the phone to put on the nightstand. "Sleep now though, mmkay?"

He puffs out a loud exhale against her because even though he always, always wants her he is feeling the weight of false realms, and curses, and even perhaps his ago. So, Killian just snuggles her closer and murmurs right against her neck, "Love you Swan."

"'Ove you too." Or something to that nature before he hears her little snores against his neck, choosing to ignore the little dings his phone is making.

Undoubtedly, David furious about changing wedding plans.

But his one True Love is in his arm and his second has surely passed out down the hall and he really couldn't give a flying fuck about the prince's indignation right now.

So he sleeps.

* * *

He wakes sometime between night and day, the sky through his windows too dark for dawn yet he knows hours have passed. Blinking the sleep away immediately, Killian stirs, pulling Emma closer to him instinctually in case it's another curse. The Black Fairy is back. The Crocodile is finally here to finish his revenge. There's another villain on the horizon-

He makes out a vaguely male shape in their doorway, the hallway light silhouetting a lean, tall form and he crazily thinks for a moment that it's David, angry over delayed nuptials and has quite the speech to give him when he registers who is standing at his bedroom door.

It's Henry.

"Hi," He whispers, clearly trying not to wake his mother. (Which is a right feat, to be honest. The woman loves her bed.)

"I'm sorry." His voice comes out in choked stutters, emphasized only by the soft sound of sock-clad feet against hardwood. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Killian makes sure to free one hand from her grasp to stroke down Emma's hair (a sure-fire way to keep her slumbering) before he answers. "Nonsense, lad. You never need to apologize for seeking either of us out. Is anything the matter."

He can hear Henry's blush from the bed. "No..No, I just...I just wanted to make sure everything was still okay because last time." Henry shrugs his shoulders and Killian feels a wave of affection for the boy crash over him.

Of course. Of course.

Because last time there was a curse and he just wants to make sure they're well. The same way they check on him in odd nights.

Killian blinks against the sudden wetness in his eyes, blaming it on sleep as he keeps stroking Emma's hair. "She's alright lad. We are all alright. You broke the curse, after all."

He can't keep the pride out of his tone and he feels the increased heat of the lad's cheeks from his spot on the doorway as she scratches his head, looking away. "Right. Sure. So I'll just...head back to my room, I guess."

Henry scratches his feet along the floor as he says this, his body slow to turn and it's enough that Hook gets it.

He doesn't want to leave.

And suddenly he remembers Liam, and the willingness to trade anything if he could have one more night next to a person he loved.

And the poor lad. He had a lifetime of fake memories without that touch. Without falling asleep knowing he was safe and cared for and-

"You know," Killian kept his voice low and slowly retreated away from Emma, even as he made sure he kept stroking her hair (and thus guaranteeing her sleep) "My brother Liam and I shared a cot until he got his promotion. The night he died...I always regretted not sharing space with him one last time."

Henry stops in his slow turn back to the hallway, glancing over his shoulder with, yup, pink cheeks. "But didn't you feel like, too old for all that shit. Shit-don't tell mom I swore."

Killian chuckles again, lowering his tone only when he feels Swan shuffle against the empty bed and makes a gesture towards the lad with his brace. "Never. Now come here lad, or I just might slip the beans."

"It's spill the beans," Henry grumbles, even as he crosses the space between doorway and bed and hesitantly looks at sheets his (soon-to-be) stepfather pulls back for him. "Are you sure-"

"Your mother will sleep through anything provided her hair is being played with." Killian says honestly. "And one of us will probably wake up looking for you, so it saves us some sleep. Come on now lad, I'm an old man and need my rest."

"You're not like, naked under there or anything are you?" He asks with a horrified look on his face even as he shuffles closer.

Killian grins. "Nope, even heroes need their beauty rest."

Henry snorts, muttering something about "someone not needing their beauty rest" but slides under the covers Hook has pulled up all the same.

There's a moment where he fears he has woken Emma up but she just slides a lazy arm around him, kisses his head, mutters his name, and falls back to sleep.

Henry blinks, expecting to feel too warm between his mother and her boyfriend, under all the blankets. But the truth is, he feels safe and loved and-and-

Is asleep in minutes.

* * *

She doesn't wake up with the sun

She wakes up to the rhythmic pounding of her front door that could only be her father. (Or Grumpy, but if it's fucking Leroy she's killing him) But just after she stretches and yawns, she opens her eyes and sees:

Her boys.

Henry's got his knees tucked up (How he's slept since he was a baby, she knows thanks to Regina) but Killian has both arms stretched out, his good hand on Henry's shoulder and his brace under hers. They both have the absolute worst bedhead, and so man knees are in the bed. But they're both asleep, peace drawing their brows soft and even and goddamnit-

She's so in love with both of them. (She's so glad they love each other, her capital 't' True Loves, loving each other. It's more than her teenage self could dream of.

More than her thirty-something year old self could wish for.)

So she closes her eyes for a moment, ignoring David's rapid knocks and simply runs her fingers through Henry's hair gently, feeling her chest swell and burst with simple joy and affection and wonder at how easy this all is. At the fact that she loves a man who loves her son and how rare-how awesome is that?

She only opens them when she feels a thumb drying tears she wasn't aware she was shedding, opening her eyes to meet the blue of Killian's concerned gaze.

"Happy tears," She whispers, and that seems enough for him as he meets her smile with one of his own, squeezing her arm lightly.

"Aye. Will you go stop your father from upending the door and waking the lad or shall I?"

He's left his hand over Henry's shoulder and Emma can't bare to disturb it. Can't bare to disturb the natural balance of her son and her lover holding each other.

So she scooches out ot the covers and lays a single finger on her lips. "Me. You need your sleep, so does Henry. Be right back."

Killian nods sleepily in her direction, but shuffles back so her son has more room even as he nods.

Emma wraps a robe around her tank top and shorts, wincing when the cold wood comes in contact with her feet.

David's going to have hell to pay for taking her from her bed today.

(And he does. A full lecture from both women he loves and a sentence on the couch for the week. It's only her mother's final furious demand that sends her back up to bed, back to cuddle with her boys.)

("Grandpa got in trouble, didn't he?"

"Oh, so much kid.")

They never talk about that night again. (But Emma remembers.)

* * *

"So like, are you two ever going to actually get married?" It slips out and he doesn't really mean it. It's not like Henry's old fashioned or anything.

(Unlike his grandpa, who only stops hinting at marriage when little Eve is literally thrust into his face. And then he's a ball of goo.)

Emma leans up, facing him from her prone spot on the grass (atop a pirate, and ugh) as she blinks against the bright mid-day sun outside Harvard.

It's family weekend and Henry is more than happy to spend it entertaining Eve. (And his baby sister is totally fascinated in everything he does. Kilian's mentioned it. His mom's mentioned it. He tries to blow it off like it doesn't make pride swell in his belly, because yeah.)

"You try planning a wedding while taking care of a baby, see how far you get," Emma taunts back, accepting Eve back into her arms as Henry hands her over.

Eve makes a disgruntled face at being handed away from her favourite person, but her father starts humming and she gets over it.

"I mean, I don't really care." Henry explains, flopping down on the lawn next to them, soaking in the hot Massachusetts sun. It's still hot, despite the Autumn season. "But I think Grandpa is going to have a conniption one of these days."

Emma groans and he hears Hook laugh, a rumbling, joyful sound from behind her as he takes his daughter on his knee, making silly faces.

Henry rolls his eyes. (Some fearsome captain.)

"I don't know kid, it just seemed less important." His mom says, stretching now that she's not full of baby. "You know, there was Eve. And then you moving off to college, and everyone loves each other, so it's not like I'm in a hurry."

Henry feels his ears go red. Despite the fact that he and Hook shared...ugh, damn it...TLK, it still makes him blush when he thinks of how much his pirate father loves him. How he thinks of Henry as his own son. How he…

Just, ugh.

(Maybe he is his mother's son is more than one way.)

And she's right, after all. Eve's birth had put a wrench in things. When Emma mentioned she was pregnant after postponing the wedding, neither he nor David had taken it well. David was a touch in-the-books righteous and Henry, with his upcoming school year and inevitable departure, felt a little replaced.

(Right up until he'd come home, finding Emma sobbing on the couch and holding him, begging him to believe that she loved him, loved him.

Henry had the faintest feeling of appreciation for Snow and her endless lectures on babies when she was pregnant with Neal for why he didn't feel like they were under another curse. Emma was many, many things. A crybaby was none of them and all he could do was hold her back and hope she was okay.

He also sent sympathy thoughts to Hook, but really, his little sister did turn out to be a cute baby.)

Henry rolls his eyes as Eve waves her hands back to him, wide green eyes smiling brightly when he takes her back, rocking her back and forth. "Yeah, but like Hook's blessing is going to expire soon. He'll have to ask again."

Emma's laugh is warm, bubbling from the ground up and it makes Henry grin at his sister. (Truly, a cute kid. Roland finally had some competition) "Come again?"

"Not in public love, you'll embarrass the lad."

Henry scoffs at his stepfather's antics, hoisting Eve higher until she giggles, a wispy, delighted sound. "I was saying that the statute of limitations on my permission was only so long and you've about used it up, pirate."

He tries to be stern but the genuine affection, joy in Killian's eyes as he takes in Henry holding his daughter is too much, and he meets his chuckles with his own. As Henry's arms begin to tire, Hook opens his own to accept the girl, nestling her safely to his chest before giving him a needling stare back. "Oh, and what should I do to win back your permission to marry your lovely mother?"

"Wait, seriously, you asked his permission?"

Henry stares at the cloudless sky, hoping his grin doesn't give him away. He loves school, he truly does, but he misses them both (all three) in ways he won't say.

(He's always thankful for the way they never bring up the night he spent with them, tucked under his mother's arms with Killian snoring in his ear. He was way, way too old for it to be cool but then he remembers Liam and is just thankful he has a family that gets it.)

Who else could claim to have perfect sleeping arrangements at sixteen?

"Hmmm...I suppose, you'd have to barter something of equal value, pirate." Henry says, biting down his laughter.

Emma has no such luck and her hair shimmies in the grass as she turns, nearly peeling with laughter.

"And what would that be, mate?" Hook asks, doing that weird thing with his eyebrows that Henry had tried (and failed) to master through the years.

"Hmmm…" He pressed on his lips, feigning contemplation until Eve grew bored of her father and whined again, reaching for Henry with her little fist.

Her father pouted, handing her over until she rested on her brother's chest, giggling.

"How about I get Eve once a month?"

"No deal." Killian said with such vehemence Henry nearly unseated his sister as he turned to stare at cautious blue eyes. He said it at almost the same time that his mother had spouted,

"Deal."

Hook glared at her, shifting his gaze between Emma and the baby now mouthing around Henry's fingers.

"Love, his room is hardly equipped for a babe. And what about his roommate, Kent? We don't know anything about him. He could be a serial killer or a kidnapper or-" Emma covered her boyfriend's mouth with her hand, winking at her son when he laughed, causing little Eve to chuckle due to the vibrations against her tiny legs.

"Sorry kid, your stepfather has been watching too much 60 minutes when he's on diaper duty. I'd be fine with you taking your sister for a weekend, just make sure you're roommate is okay with it, alright?"

Henry was tempted to tell her here and there that his roommate totally had superpowers and he was already doing him a favour by not spilling the beans, but eh, he got his deal so why push?

That was a trade for another day.

"-And she likes her Dora bottle best." Killian listed her needs, a little frown still between his brow. "We change her twice a day, and she gets to play with her swan in the bathtub and her favourite story is-"

"Peter Pan, I know, I know." Henry chucked, laughing at the 'overprotective dad' vibe Hook was giving off. "I did live with her for months, you remember."

Killian's face turned white as he sat up, forcing his mother to grunt and shift over with his sudden movements. "I know lad. She adores you. You're her brother. I wasn't trying to-it's just a babe with a college student seemed imprudent and I forgot myself but you are…"

Killian babbles on for another few moments as both his wife (or soon to be) and stepson snickered at him. "Oh, bugger off. You know what I mean."

" I do,' Henry managed to stop laughing long enough to watch Eve play with the hair on his arms with a careful eye. (She loved to pull.) "But as I said, you'll need to ask my permission again soon enough."

Hook met his stare dead-on, his hand on his mom's leg. "Henry Mills."

 _Oh god, how dramatic._

"Henry Mills, do I have your permission to ask Emma Swan to marry me, again?"

"You guys both know I'm right here?" She was ignored.

Henry pretended to mull over the idea, tossing Eve up in the air and back while he squinted, before turning back to the pirate. " I suppose…provided I'm still the best man."

* * *

It's his first Thanksgiving home that it happens. Eve won't sleep without him and her mother, and Emma can't sleep without Killian, and Killian can't sleep without Eve so-

All four of them piled into the wide bed together as Emma and Killian laugh, their rings clinking together every now and again.

(David did get the big wedding of his dreams. Walking his daughter down the aisle.)

Henry's asleep in an instant, his infant sister wiping him out. Eve is no better, asleep as soon as her brother is. And Kilian? Killian is there right after Eve so Emma...so Emma.

She forces her eyes open, lets the smile unfold on her face, takes in the sight before her of the full, welcome bed.

She laughs at her former self, how she hated sharing with bedmates as she shuffles closer to her children, linking hands with her husband.

A bit of space? What a laugh.

This was so, so much better.

* * *

A/N: And, that's it folks. Thanks for the ride. I may post an epilogue-ish sort of piece involving Emma depending on how much feedback I get from . Let me know. And as always, thanks for reading!


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